Barbara Delinsky - Suddenly

In the idyllic small town of Tucker,Vermont, life flows at a rhythmic pace for pediatrician Paige Pfeiffer.But when Mara O'Neill, her best friend and medical partner, inexplicably kills herself, Paige's comfortable life is suddenly shattered.

Barbara Delinsky started out her writing career creating novels for the category romance genre, partly under pseudonyms; but she has evolved into a name-brand all her own, praised by romance fans for the layered plotting and the complex characters on display in literally dozens of bestsellers.

Suddenly [067-011-4.6]

By: Barbra Delinsky

Synopsis:

This explosive new novel from the author of the New York Times bestseller More Than Friends is a provocative and emotionally charged story readers will not be able to put down. Dr. Paige Pfeiffer has a full and happy life, but when best friend and medical partner, Mara O'Neill, kills herself, small-town pediatrician Paige Pfeiffer takes in Mara's newly adopted daughter and discovers the unexpected pleasures of motherhood.

Harper Mass Market Paperbacks;

ISBN: 0061042005

Copyright 1994

Paige PFEIFFER RAN AT THE FRONT OF THE pack, setting a pace that a less bold thirty-nine-year-old might not dare, but she had a point to prove and a bet to win. The bet involved dinner at Bernie's Bearnaise, central Vermont's most chichi restaurant. The point was that a woman her age who was in shape could easily beat a woman half her age who wasn't. At stake was the respect of the Mount Court Academy girls' varsity cross-country team, of which she was head coach for the fifth year in a row.

The race had become a tradition, albeit a predictable one. For the first of the three miles, the girls tossed cocky comments from one to the next. The comments waned during the second mile, which wove through a path in the woods and grew demanding of teenage bodies that had spent the summer indulging in the luxuries of the rich. Back on the road for the third mile, the pack thinned. Laboring runners fell behind. Only the stars of the team stayed with Paige.

There were six stars this year. Five of them had run for her the year before. The other was new to the school "How we doin'?" Paige asked of the group, and heard gasping complaints. Feeling wicked, she smiled. "Let's pick it up." She moved easily ahead of the others.

Three moved with her.

Minutes later, when she increased the pace again, only one remained.

It was the new girl, so quiet up to that point that Paige knew little more than that her name was Sara Dickinson. Paige was surprised by her stamina.

She was doubly surprised when, with a surge of speed, the girl took the lead.

Paige had to work to stay with her as they turned in under the wrought-iron arch that marked the school's entrance, and for a minute she wondered if indeed she were past her prime. When the thought of that rankled, she dug deep inside and found the wherewithal to draw even. Shoulder to shoulder they ran, down the long drive cordoned with tall oaks whose leaves were a ripe September green. Without missing a beat, they veered off onto the dirt path that cut to the field house.

You're good," Paige breathed with a look at the girl beside her. She was tall for her.age, had a lithe build, a comfortable stride, and a look of concentration that was nothing if not stern.

As Paige watched in darting glances, that concentration suddenly shifted, and in the space of seconds she was alone. Sara had reversed direction and was walking, winded but intent, toward the shrubbery edging the path.

One by one, the others joined her there.

Paige made a wide turn and, slowing to a cooldown pace, headed back.

In various stages of breathlessness, the girls were grouped around Sara, who was crouched beside a spreading yew. It was a minute before Paige saw what was beneath the bottommost branch.

"It's so tiny!"

"Whose is it?"

"How did it get here?"

Forgetting the race, Paige knelt down. She took the kitten, which was orange and gray and mewling piteously, in her hand and asked Sara, "How did you ever spot it hidden this way?"

"Something moved," Sara said, and the chorus resumed.

"It doesn't belong here. Mount Court only has dogs."

"Someone must have snuck it in" "Then abandoned it."

"It looks starved."

Paige was thinking the same and wondering what could be done, when all eyes turned her way.

"We can't leave it here."

"It'll die, it's so little."

"That'd be cruel."

"You'll have to take it, Dr. Pfeiffer."

Paige pictured her overstuffed home. "I don't have room for a pet. I don't have time for one."

"Cats are easy. They take care of themselves."

"You keep it," Paige countered.

"We can't."

"It's against dorm rules."

Paige had coached at Mount Court long enough to know that breaking the rules was a way of life, and while she certainly didn't condone it, she was amused. "Against dorm rules? What else is new?"

"The Head, that's what."

He's an asshole."

"Big time."

"He expelled two guys on the second day of school."

"For what?" Paige asked, overlooking foul language for the sake of goodwill.

"Smoking pot."

"There was no warning, nothing."

"He's totally anal."

"We're talking crack-down city_ n "No_no_Noah_n "Mount Court Penitentiary."

Paige hadn't met the new Head yet and was picturing something with horns when the pleading resumed.

"Take the kitten, Dr. Pfeiffer."

"It'll die if you don't."

"Do you want that on your conscience?"

Paige stroked the tiny creature, which was little more than a handful of fur and bones, and trembling at that. "I'm being manipulated."

"It's for a good cause," one of the girls said.

Paige shot her a chiding look. "It's for a good cause" was what she always said when she pushed the girls for an extra campus loop.

"But I don't know where to begin," she protested, a mistake if ever there was one because the words were barely out of her mouth when she was barraged with advice on food, litter, and housing. Ten minutes later she found herself in her car with the kitten in a cardboard box on the seat beside her.

"Only until I find it a home," she warned out the window as she drove off and, determined to do just that, headed straight into town. She pulled up at the police station, intent on presenting the kitten to the animal officer, but he was gone for the day. So she left him a note and tried the Ceneral Store. The family who owned it had cats. They had lots of cats.

She didn't figure another would make a difference, especially one so tiny.

"Can't do," Holus Weebly said with a sad shake of his head. "Just had to put one of ours to sleep. Feline leukemia. It'll get the others, too. And yours, if I take it. You'd be best keeping it yourself.

You're a doctor.

You'll take good care."

Paige was feeling desperate as she followed him up and down the short aisles, making her case. "I'm a pediatrician. I don't know the first thing about cats."

"But you know the vet, and he does. So take it there in the morning, and he'll tell you what you have to know. Here." He thrust a large brown paper bag into her arms. "All you need til then." He guided her to the door.

"Give it fresh water with the food, and a warm place to sleep."

"But I can't keep it."

"It'll love you, doc. Everyone loves you."

She was suddenly back in her car, with kitten supplies and the kitten, and Holus had returned to his store.

"Swell," she told the tiny creature, which had fallen asleep snug in a corner of its box.