Blackberry Cove

by Roxanne Snopek

  “It’s the friendly dog,” came the voice. “That’s a relief.”

  She looked down onto the rocky landing from where she heard the voice and saw a figure sitting on the dark slab of rock next to a glittering pool, the sharp edges worn smooth by surf and wind. A white T-shirt clung to his upper body, cargo shorts below, both darkened by water. Jewel draped over him like a bad fur coat, half-on, half-off, her tail slapping wetly on the rock.

  The man sounded neither surprised nor irritated but, since Jewel’s sudden appearance would most certainly be cause for such reaction, this in itself was disconcerting.

  “We heard you calling,” she said. “Thought you might need help.”

  “Way better than an amorous sea lion, at least, which was my first impression,” continued the man, as if she hadn’t spoken.

  That nice crisp voice had a note of desperate calm running through it now.

  Haylee half climbed, half slid down the rock separating them.

  There he was, the same handsome stranger, in the flesh.

  “So, you’re okay, then?” she asked, slipping down the last bit, until she was standing just above where he sat with Jewel.

  “Oh, absolutely. I’m more than okay. I’m fantastic.” He gestured to the dog. “I can’t feel my legs, though. Do you mind?”

  “Right.” Haylee motioned for Jewel to climb off.

  He winced as the dog’s nails dug into his thighs. “You sure she’s not a sea lion? Ow! Or possibly a walrus? Wait. No tusks.”

  Haylee gave Jewel a hug. “Good girl, you found him. What a smart girl you are.” The dog was wet, happy, and whole. She’d definitely earned her cookies tonight.

  The guy rubbed his legs and got to his feet, keeping a hand on the rock. Yes, still tall. Still big. And all muscle, despite the unsteadiness.

  Her pulse jumped another notch. The vibe coming off him was clangy, discordant, like an orchestra in warm-up, after the long summer break. The scattered light reflecting off waves and wet rock cast stark shadows across the rugged planes of his face. No laugh lines now.

  “She was looking for me? Not to appear ungrateful, but I can’t imagine why. If she’s a sniffer dog, the cigarettes are oregano, I swear. I’m holding them for a friend. I’ve never even inhaled.”

  She took a step back and put a hand on Jewel’s warm back.

  There was no scent of tobacco, let alone weed, but he was speaking too quickly. Something definitely had him rattled and it was more than indignity.

  “I’m joking. Badly, I see. Don’t worry, I’ll keep my distance. I bet you wish you’d taken a different path tonight.”

  “What are you doing out here?” Someone needed to get this conversation on track.

  He wiped his face with his forearm. A tattoo ran along the underside but she couldn’t make out details. His strong jaw was liberally covered in a two-day growth of dark whiskers.

  You expected such a man to growl or roar or paw the ground, yet he talked like he had a beer in one hand and a pair of aces in the other.

  Bluffing?

  “It went something like this. I was watching the sunset, minding my own business, when a large, sea lion-esque creature”—he indicated the dog nudging her pocket—“belly-flopped into the tide pool at my feet. She seemed to not want to be there, so I helped haul her out. That’s when she took our relationship to the next level. You arrived. The end.”

  “You hauled her out?”

  “What can I say?” he answered. “I’m a helper.”

  “In that case . . . thanks.” She hesitated, then thought what the hell. “I’m Haylee Hansen. I work at Sanctuary Ranch, about a mile inland. You’re the new doctor, aren’t you?”

  He looked a little taken aback but then he caught himself and said, “Guilty as charged. Aiden McCall. Nice to meet you, Haylee. And Jewel, the friendly dog.”

  “Why were you yelling?” Haylee asked. “I thought you were hurt.”

  “Would you believe I was practicing for an audition?”

  “No.”

  “Right. My stand-up routine sucks. Oh well, worth a try.”

  He kept both hands on the rocky outcropping at his hip, as if he expected the earth to fall out from beneath his feet.

  “You’re going to be trapped,” she said. “The tide’s coming in.”

  He glanced down, as if only now noticing that his once-dry perch had an inch of water covering it.

  “Huh. What do you know? I guess we’ll be trapped together, then.”

  “Nah, that’s a rookie mistake.” She hesitated a moment, then sighed and held out her hand. “Come on. I’ll help you out.”

  But just then, a chunk of mussel-shell broke under her boot. She stumbled forward and would have slipped into the water below, but he caught her, one hand on her arm, the other around her waist, and pulled her away from the edge.

  His hands were cold from the water, his grip like icy steel but instead of a chill, heat rushed across her skin where he touched her. His scent enveloped her, a light, woodsy cologne overlaid with kelp and brine and wind and sweat.

  She’d misinterpreted his body language, she realized. Tight, tense, alert, this man was on, the same way she remembered her father and brother being, as all firefighters, soldiers, and surgeons were, even on weekends. Life-and-death situations demanded and honed a kind of raw energy, a costly undercurrent that didn’t disappear at the end of a shift.

  “God, I’m so sorry,” she said with a gasp. Daphne would love this story, if she ever got wind of it.

  “Don’t be.” His breath was warm on her neck. “My male ego is vastly improved.”

  He stepped away the second she found her feet, then slapped wet sand from his thighs and butt.

  Lean. Muscled. Nice.

  Oh dear.

  “Follow me,” she told him, hoping it was too dark for him to see the blush she felt on her cheeks.

  “What about your sea lion?”

  “Jewel?” Haylee gave a little laugh. The dog had given up on extra treats and was now trotting down the rocks back to the sandy beach above the waterline. “She’s way ahead of us. You okay to get back to . . . to get back?”

  He lifted his chin and looked at the horizon, his eyes narrow, his full lips set tight with thin lines slicing deep on both sides, as if in pain.

  “You bet,” he said. “I’m great.”

  Sunset colors splashed over the stark planes of his face, warmth meeting chill, light and shadow flickering and dancing. Haylee shivered.

  He looked, she thought, like a man walking through fire.

  * * *

  As the last of the light faded, Aiden McCall walked the half hour across the beach, angling upward until the smooth sand became interspersed with the rough brush and tall, spiky grasses growing roadside. How much of his rant, he wondered, had that dog-walker caught?

  A million miles of empty beach and he had to pick the one spot where someone could hear him.

  And not just anyone.

  A cute blonde with long curly hair, toned arms, and the kind of no-nonsense attitude that belonged behind a triage desk.

  Had she really thought he’d been stranded? Her dog—Jewel?—seemed to consider him the prize at the bottom of the Cracker Jack box. How long had he been sitting there? Surely not that long. But he wasn’t the most reliable witness, was he?

  One second he’d been watching the sun move down toward the sea and the next he was wrestling a dog in the semi-dark, up to his ass in seawater.

  He swiped at his face, recalling the animal’s warm tongue, ripe with the stink of life. Bacteria too numerous to count, certainly. Nothing dangerous, hopefully. Pet lovers always told him that living with animals strengthened the immune system; he preferred the soap-and-water method himself.

  Still, the creature had shocked him with its fleshy closeness. The heavy body leaning against him without boundaries, judgment, awkward courtesy, or worst of all, sympathy, had been oddly intimate.

  If only the woman hadn’t been the
re to witness it all.

  He kicked at a piece of driftwood. With his luck, she’d turn out to be pals with the head ER nurse, and before he’d even set foot in the hospital, everyone would know that the new trauma doc spent his evenings yelling into the sunset.

  Let it out. Yell. Scream. Be angry. Find a place where no one can hear you and get it all out. Psychobabble bullshit.

  What a load. Letting it out wasn’t his style, but good old-fashioned denial wasn’t working, so he had to try, didn’t he?

  Aiden preferred joking. He teased. He laughed. He prattled in true idiot savant fashion. Because, contrary to the board-mandated therapist’s belief, he was already plenty angry and well aware of it. But open that can of worms? Let it out? Who would that serve?

  Still, he’d tried, as he’d tried everything. He’d yelled into the setting sun and not only did he not feel better, but by tomorrow, they’d be calling him Crazy Eyes and monitoring his scalpel blades.

  If he had the energy, he’d feel mortified. Or at least, embarrassed. But once you’ve self-diagnosed a heart attack in your own ER and been convinced you were dying, only to be informed that you were one hundred percent A-Okay, just suffering from anxiety, well, it was tough to beat that low.

  His ward clerk finding him hyperventilating in the mop closet had done it, though.

  That’s when he knew he had to leave Portland. Two hundred and ten pounds of raw, quivering panic caused by a little car accident? He’d faced down whacked out meth-heads, calmed an armed man in full paranoid delusion, leaped into codes, led his team, handled everything, seen everything.

  But the memories intruded, as they always did.

  Tires squealing, metal screeching against metal, “Mommy-Mommy-Mommy . . .”

  Then, silence.

  The silence was the worst.

  Aiden could hear his breath over the soft sounds of night. Slow down. Don’t think about it.

  Don’t think at all.

  But like avalanches, thoughts once started aren’t easily stopped. They tumbled in, over, through, gaining momentum until now, after thirteen years running a Level 1 emergency facility in one of the biggest hospitals in the Pacific Northwest, he was falling apart.

  It was the damnedest thing.

  His chest hurt. He couldn’t catch his breath. He needed to get inside. To sit down. To lie down.

  It was almost full dark now as he wound through the rabbit warren of Beachside Villas, looking for the one he’d rented for the summer, trying not to violate the privacy of those who hadn’t drawn their curtains.

  But the eye naturally follows light and every window seemed to frame people sitting around tables or moving about kitchens. Ordinary people. Ordinary meals. Not takeout in soggy cardboard containers, eaten alone in front of the TV, but real food. Eaten on dishes, at tables. Families. Friends. Husbands and wives.

  Children.

  Babies.

  He couldn’t resist looking, even though the sight of one towheaded youngster in a high chair brought Garret to mind so clearly his knees nearly buckled and he had to stop walking. This, years after the memory of his young son’s face had faded, after making peace with Michelle’s remarriage, being happy for her, even.

  The vise grip banding his ribs tightened but he stumbled on, tearing his gaze away from the window frames.

  Almost there. You can make it.

  Rich smells spiked the air, piercing his mind, giving his fragmented concentration something to grab on to but it made things worse: spicy tomato sauce spilled thick and red, garlic bit like acid, grill-seared flesh smoked, choking him.

  He gripped the back of his neck, then brought his hand up over his head, crushing his cap, as if he could physically squeeze the negative thoughts from his brain.

  He was over this! He was strong, fine, great. So why was he gasping like an asthmatic in a dust storm?

  He bent over, bracing his hands on his knees.

  He’d probably forgotten to eat again. That was a mistake. There was a bagel left in the cabin, he thought. In a bag on the counter. He’d eat that. That would help.

  Right. A bagel. That’ll fix everything.

  He half straightened, stumbling Quasimodo-style to the small playground adjacent to his unit. He grabbed at the lamppost that cast a soft light over the swings and teeter-totter, swallowed hard, then forced his ribs to expand and contract.

  Garret was gone. It was no one’s fault. But that little boy six months ago, well. Aiden, of all people, should have known to check.

  The lights from the windows started to dance in pairs, then triplets. He couldn’t get enough air.

  Rough gasps tore raggedly from his throat, littering the serene night air.

  In-one-two-three. Out-one-two-three.

  Nope. The lights stopped dancing and coalesced into one small pinpoint, disappearing down a long tunnel, far away, like a subway train.

  You’re catastrophizing again, called a little voice from way off on the subway train. Mountains, molehills. Tempests, teacups. Crazy eyes, yes, a result of adrenal overload caused by living in the worst-case scenario, of which he had endless templates.

  It was entirely possible that he’d pull himself together, get a full night’s sleep, and walk into the office tomorrow morning bright and competent, prepared to become the new emergency physician in the smallest trauma center he’d ever seen. It would be perfect. Bug bites. Food poisoning. Cuts and scrapes.

  Yeah. He could do that.

  Except that he was going to die first. His heart was exploding. The roar of the ocean pulsated all around him, thump-thump-rushing like blood from an aortic dissection. Just because he hadn’t been having a cardiac event last month didn’t mean he wasn’t having one now.

  He pushed his back against the lamppost and slid down until he plopped hard into the dirt. He was fine. He just couldn’t breathe, that’s all. No one died of panic. Of course not. That was silly.

  They died of cardiac arrest. Which followed respiratory arrest. Which was happening to him.

  Right. Goddamn. Now.

  He pushed his head between his knees, hoping to hell that he’d get over this spell before someone came by and found him. He imagined that big friendly dog leaping on him, body-slamming him to the ground, knocking the dead air out and resetting his lungs.

  He remembered the woman, Haylee, when she’d fallen into him, her warmth bleeding into his cold flesh, hearing the steady, normal rhythm of her heart, the weight of her slender body like a blanket on a cold night, or a brick on a sheaf of papers, keeping them from flying away in the wind.

  Slowly, slowly, the tunnel shortened.

  The steel band around his chest loosened and he gulped in desperate lungfuls of cool night air. He was drenched all over again with icy sweat, as if he really had been trapped by the tide, like Haylee, the pretty dog-walker had warned. His limbs quaked and he couldn’t have gotten to his feet for anything, but he could breathe again.

  “You all right there, young man?”

  Aiden lifted his head with a jerk. A figure stood in the lane beneath a large oak tree, her hair glowing white in the lamplight. Thin, knobby fingers gripped the slack leash attached to an equally small and elderly terrier.

  “It’s just, you look a little frayed around the edges,” she added. “I recognize the signs, being a little frayed at times myself. Only you being young and strong, well. Seems a little out of place.”

  He got to his feet, keeping his back to the post in case the dizziness returned. It was too late for anonymity anyway, if such a thing was even possible in a small town.

  “I’m . . . fine, thank you,” he managed. “It’s been a . . . fraying . . . kind of day.”

  “Ah, yes. Those happen, don’t they? Is there anything I can do to help?”

  Her gentle smile eased the embarrassment that welled up in him at being caught. “You already have.” He glanced around the deserted play area. “It’s late. Would you like an escort home?”

  She hesitated and he r
ealized he’d overstepped. She was right to be cautious. He started to speak, but she interrupted him with a laugh, a crinkly, tinkling sound that danced over the night air. “My name is Elsie. My husband—Anton—and I are in cabin three. You’re the new doctor, I believe, yes? In cabin four?”

  He held out his hand. “I see word’s gotten around. Aiden McCall. I’m very pleased to meet you, Elsie.”

  Her small bones felt like twigs. The dog eyed him suspiciously and took a couple of steps sideways.

  “Be nice,” Elsie said to the dog. “Her name’s Bette Davis. She’ll be fine once she gets to know you. I’ve got apple pie in the cabin. Would you care for a piece?”

  A short stand of shrubs blocked his view of the cabins on either side, a factor that had played into his decision to rent here. He wanted privacy, not company. Still, her easy generosity drew him.

  “I appreciate the offer, Elsie. But I’ve got an early morning tomorrow.”

  “Young people, always so busy,” she said with a sigh. “We’ll be off, then. But the offer stands if you find yourself at loose ends another time. I love to bake and pies are my specialty. We’re here year-round and always enjoy meeting the summer people.”

  He waved at her. His hands were steadier now, his vision clearer.

  “See you, Bette Davis,” he called.

  The dog glanced over her shoulder and gave a low woof.

  Elsie waved again and disappeared around the corner.

  Aiden leaned against the lamppost. Elsie and Anton, he thought. They sounded nice. He hoped they had a dozen pie-loving grandchildren.

  He waited a minute or two to let his new friends get a head start, then followed the trail back to his cabin. What would he do if a dozen children suddenly showed up next door?

  He’d have to find a new place.

  No. He couldn’t keep running. He had to be okay. He was okay.

  He could breathe.

  Some days, that was the best you could get.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  USA Today bestselling author Roxanne Snopek writes contemporary romance both sexy and sweet, in small towns, big cities, and secluded islands, with families and communities that will warm your heart. Her fictional heroes (like her own real-life hero) are swoon-worthy, uber-responsible, secretly vulnerable, and occasionally dough-headed, but animals love them, which makes everything okay. Roxanne writes from British Columbia, Canada, where she is surrounded by flowers, wildlife, and two adoring dogs. She does yoga to stay sane. It works, mostly.