posture. She wore her sleek black hair in a bob that swooped under her chin, and her lined eyes gave her the look of a brooding poet. In spite of these austere features she was much more approachable than anyone had expected the day she moved into the vacant offices previously occupied by a dentist. She never donned a white coat. Her soft turtlenecks and slim jeans did a far better job of instilling patients’ confidence and assuaging any anxiety they associated with doctors’ offices.
Hank and Karen were rounding up the guests when Garner took Cat’s hand and gently pulled her away from the group.
“My turn with the guest of honor,” he said. “We’re heading in. Don’t miss out!”
“You’ve outdone yourself,” Cat said to Garner.
He sandwiched her hand in his and squeezed. “I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather celebrate,” he said.
“The food was amazing, and everyone is being so kind.”
“You bet they are. No one else in this town is quite so easy to like as you. You’re good for us all.” The bookseller Nova was sitting alone at her table as Garner and Cat passed by. “Are you coming?” he asked her. Though Nova looked at Garner when he spoke to her, she gave no answer.
Mazy appeared at Garner’s side. “That one’s a bit off in the head,” the restaurateur said of Nova in low tones.
“Balderdash. She’s of sounder mind than I am,” Garner said. “And thoughtful too. She recycles all her glass jars and lets me pick out the ones I can use at the shop.”
Mazy made a pfft sound with her lips. “Frankly, I’m surprised she’s here.”
“You shouldn’t say stuff like that. She’s always real sweet to me. And the most well-read person I’ve ever met. Don’t you think so too, Cat? You probably know her better than anyone here.”
Cat lifted her eyebrows but didn’t reply, because of course, thought Garner, she was too professional and polite for this kind of nonsense.
The room where the residents of Burnt Rock gathered this lovely summer night was a theater in the round. Its beautiful domed roof boasted skylights that were big enough to see the stars sparkling in the cobalt blue sky. At the center of the circular space, a glowing fire pit that was never extinguished reflected Garner’s everlasting good mood.
Almost four hundred people filed in quickly, chattering like morning birds though the sun had set, many still holding drinks and plates of food as they squeezed onto the long benches that encircled the dancing fire pit. The gathering place didn’t exactly accommodate a crowd this size, but no one seemed to mind.
“Thank you, all!” Garner’s strong voice rapidly settled the crowd. “Thank you for coming up here tonight to celebrate my fifty-ninth birthday!”
Everyone laughed at that, and Hank yelled from the back, “And my twenty-first is tomorrow! C’mon by the hardware store—we’ll be serving shots of prune juice on the house!”
Garner drew Cat to stand next to him while the chuckling rippled around the room and finally settled into attentive silence. “All right, all right, so this old body can’t pass for fifty-nine anymore, but I am here to tell you something even more unbelievable: today my oncologist called me himself to say that my aggressive cancer has met its match.” Garner placed his arm around Cat’s shoulder and squeezed her with a sideways hug. “It’s true. That beast hasn’t spread by a single cell in the last three months. Now, the oncologist is a man of modern medicine, and you all know I don’t shun that—on the contrary, I’m grateful. But I know something else too. We all know it. And that is that we have a fine young doctor of our own among us, an attentive and smart woman who knows a thing or two about complementary therapies.”
A flurry of whistles and applause rippled around the room.
Garner held up a finger. “You know the world’s been turned upside down when someone from the big bad corporate hospitals has a kind word to say about a small-town physician.” Garner looked at Cat. “He gives you his compliments, my dear. And all of us here give you our thanks.”
“Hear, hear!” someone shouted.
“Until Dr. Ransom wandered into town one year ago today, we all limped along with our illnesses. We hunkered down here until our colds turned to infections and our flus turned to the plague and minor accidents became ‘conditions.’ We couldn’t see a doctor without driving a hundred miles down the mountain to the