by Tawna Fenske
“That’s very thoughtful of her.” She stands and gives me a smile that melts my heart. “And you. Thank you for bringing him to see me.”
“My pleasure. Had a pretty full day seeing patients, so it’s nice to get out and get some fresh air.”
Speaking of which, we should probably stop standing in her open front door with temps right around freezing. I don’t want to invite myself inside, but—
“Can we walk him around here?” she asks.
“That’s what I had in mind.” I start to hand her the leash, then stop. She’s wearing soft pink leggings and a white cashmere sweater, which looks cozy but not ideal for this chilly December afternoon. “Want me to wait here while you put on warmer stuff?”
“Oh.” She glances down as though surprised by her own outfit. “Please come in. I’ll just be a second.” She swings the door wide and beckons us inside. “Kevin can come, too. I’ve been pig-proofing, just in case.”
“Pig-proofing?”
She gives me a sheepish smile as she pads toward a bedroom at the end of the hall. “I read online that they’re very good at opening cupboards and doors, so I bought childproof locks. Even if the foster doesn’t work out, it’ll be good for when Bree brings Brian to visit.”
Brian isn’t even mobile yet, but I love that she’s thinking ahead. Another thing I love? She trusts me enough to leave her bedroom door ajar as she hustles in to change. I step further into the living room to avoid any appearance that I’m trying to sneak a peek.
“You put in a dog door?” I move to the far side of the room to study the pet flap that’s perfectly Kevin-sized.
Her response comes back muffled like she’s shouting from inside a sweater. “Bree put it in when she and Austin were dating. She wanted to make it easier when Virginia Woof stayed over.”
“That’s handy.” I turn away from the pet door and survey her living room. There’s a dove gray sofa angled across a cream-colored rug pattered in red and gray. It looks expensive and very European, and I wonder if it came from Dovlano.
I lead Kevin past the sofa, careful not to pause too long. My mom made sure he’s housebroken, but I’m not taking chances he’ll snack on a throw pillow. He angles his snout up to sniff a basket of pinecones and cinnamon sticks perched on the coffee table. That must be what’s making the room smell so homey.
“Come on,” I murmur, tugging Kevin’s leash.
He oinks and lets me lead him around the back of the sofa. On the other side sits a tall table near the fireplace with a cluster of photos in silver frames. There’s one from Bree’s wedding with all six Bracelyn siblings together. I pick it up and study the image, letting my gaze linger on Izzy’s pale face. This must have been early in the reception when she was headed into kidney failure. She surely would have been in agony, but her smile is barely strained.
I set down that photo and pick up another. The Duke and Duchess stand regally on each side of Izzy, their chins tilted up. Iz wears a purple gown, and her hair is in a fancy updo. Everyone’s posture is stiff, and they stand like they’re afraid of accidentally touching. As I study Izzy’s face, I see little resemblance to the bright, bubbly woman I’ve known this past year.
Her voice rings out from down the hall. “I’m so sorry, where are my manners? If you’d like some sparkling water, you’ll find several varieties in the fridge.”
“I’m okay.” Kevin grunts beside me, and I glance down to take his beverage order. “You okay waiting until we get outside? I saw a dog dish that must be Virginia’s.”
Kevin grunts his approval, so I turn my attention back to the photos. At the back of the cluster sits a grouping of candid images. There’s one with Bree and Izzy wrapped in fluffy white robes, surrounded by their brothers’ wives and girlfriends. Blanka, Lily, Chelsea, Amber…they’re all ruddy-cheeked and relaxed, so it must be a spa date of some sort. All the women are smiling, but Iz looks especially radiant, her face tinged with joy. It’s hard to believe this is the same woman in the photo with her parents.
I drag my eyes off the spa image, feeling guilty for checking out Izzy in her bathrobe. She’s well covered, but I don’t want to be a creeper.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” she calls from down the hall. “Almost forgot sunscreen.”
“Take your time.” There’s not much sun outside, but transplant patients have a much higher risk of skin cancer. I’m glad Izzy’s looking out for herself.
My gaze drifts to another framed image. It’s Iz and her parents again, a candid shot this time. Everyone’s in formal attire with a cluster of people around, a well-coiffed crowd with no one looking at the camera. Izzy’s focused on a butler in a starched suit holding canapés on a silver tray. Her father—or rather, the Duke—looks on with a hint of disdain, while Izzy’s mother laughs at something an older woman is saying.
As I scan the crowd around them, my gaze snags on one man. He's near the back of the group, his body half out of the frame.
But the glint of light on his bald head has me squinting closer.
Wait. That’s not—
“Ready?” Izzy’s voice snaps my attention off the photo, and I’m yanked from my thoughts by the sight of her in snug black denim. She’s got her hiking boots on again, and a fitted red wraparound sweater that hugs her curves the way I wish I could do.
“Wow.” I somehow peel my tongue off the floor. “I’ve never seen you in red. That’s your color.”
“You think?” She beams and does a charming little pirouette that ends with a curtsy. “I asked Lily to take me shopping. I wanted some things that were a bit more…daring.”
I nod and try to find words besides “sexy” or “bombshell.” She seriously looks stunning in this sweater. “Lily has good taste,” I manage. “Not that there’s anything wrong with how you dress normally.”
She smiles and stoops down to pet Kevin. “I’ve been reading about pigs. Did you know they have dichromatic vision?”
“I didn’t.” Please stop me from morphing into medical geek mode. “So they’ve got only two pigment cones, which must mean they see some colors—probably red, blue, and green?”
“Exactly.” She scratches behind Kevin’s ears. “So I figure if I expand my wardrobe a little, he’ll have an easier time seeing me.”
If I wasn’t already half in love with her, she’d have sealed the deal with this charming shred of insight. “I love that you’re dressing to help your pig.”
She stands and gives a small shrug. “Lily coached me on dressing for myself and not a man, but I figure it’s okay to accommodate Kevin just a little.”
“Absolutely.” God, she’s gorgeous. I need to get us out of here before I drop to my knees and beg to kiss her again. “Ready to walk?”
“Let me just grab my coat.” She starts to move past me, then stops. “Oh. Were you looking at the pictures?”
I glance back at the frames, pretty sure there’s something I meant to ask her. Before I can conjure it up, she’s grabbing my arm and towing me toward the door. “Maybe we should get going before that storm moves in?”
She’s right, I nearly forgot there’s a snowstorm expected this afternoon. I watch her shrug into a gray wool coat she belts at the waist. She bends down and adjusts Kevin’s sweater, and I have to look away so I don’t check out her ass. It’s round and perfect and showcased in dark denim, which I’m definitely not noticing because I’m looking at the refrigerator or the sofa or anyplace besides Izzy’s perfect backside.
“May I hold the leash for the walk?” she asks.
“What? Oh, yes. Of course.” I hand it over, and Iz wraps the nylon webbing around her wrist.
She grabs a pair of leather gloves, but shoves them in her pocket instead of putting them on. Like an idiot, I have a flash of hope she’s thinking we might hold hands. I leave my own gloves in my pocket just in case.
“Let’s go, piggy boy.” She laughs as Kevin snorts beside her, taking his sweet time ambling along the walkway toward the path. Unlike a do
g, he’s in no hurry to get anywhere.
“I read about this,” she says as he stops to smell a juniper shrub. “Did you know pigs’ sense of smell is roughly two-thousand times as good as a human’s?”
“That must be why they use them for truffle hunting.” I watch as Kevin swipes his snout over a wad of gum on the path. “He might need to refine his taste just a little.”
Izzy laughs and tugs the leash. “We’ll work on that. Also, I learned pigs have an average gestation of three months, three weeks, and three days. Oh! And pigs’ heart valves are commonly used in human patients who need replacement valves.”
“That part I did know.” I glance at Kevin and lower my voice. “Igpay issectionday is part of the curriculum around here. We start porcine science pretty early.”
Izzy cocks her head in confusion. “Igpay issectionday?”
“Pig Latin.” Which may have been the wrong tool to mask my message from an actual pig. Kevin’s watching me with alarming interest, so I focus on the explanation instead. “It’s a made-up language where you take the initial consonant or consonant cluster at the start of a word and put it on the end, then add ‘ay.’ The word ‘food’ becomes ‘oodfay,’ for instance, or ‘the’ becomes ‘ethay.’ American kids find it hilarious.”
So, apparently, does Izzy. “That’s absolutely wonderful!” She hoots and claps her hands together, tugging Kevin’s leash. “Ouldway ouyay ikelay otay alkway otay ethay ablesstay?”
It takes me a second to translate. “Would I like to walk to the stables?” I grin. “That sounds great. Kevin would probably enjoy the smells.”
We amble along the path together, close enough to touch if we wanted to. I want to, but I’m trying to get a read on Iz. She’s smiling and chattering, her breath bursting in excited puffs in the frozen winter air. “I learned Latin from my tutors,” she’s saying. “And French and Italian, plus English and Dovlanese, obviously. But Pig Latin? How utterly charming.”
“My sister and I used to have full conversations in Pig Latin,” I admit. “We were completely convinced our parents couldn’t understand us.”
“Smart parents not to let on,” she says. “They probably learned all kind of things from your secret conversations that weren’t so secret.”
“Probably.” I stuff my hands in my coat pockets and slow my pace so I don’t rush her. “No wonder they always knew when one of us hid our green beans in the houseplant or said we’d shoveled stalls when we really just had dirt clod fights in the pasture.”
“I’m afraid to ask what dirt clod fights are.” Iz kicks a hunk of dirty ice off the path without missing a stride. “You’re close with your sister?”
“Yeah. Definitely more since our father died.”
She swings her gaze to look at me, green eyes searching. “I didn’t want to bring it up, but—I’m sorry. Truly. I can only imagine it’s difficult to lose a parent.”
“I don’t talk about it a lot,” I admit, a little unsure why I brought it up. “It was all people wanted to gossip about for a while.”
Or maybe it just felt that way. Every time I went into town, I swear I heard people whispering. It might have been all in my head, but I don’t think so.
Izzy touches my arm. “If you want to talk about it with me, I’m here,” she says softly. “If not, I completely understand.”
“Thank you.” It occurs to me that of all the women I’ve dated since my father passed, I’ve never discussed this with a single one. Not once, with anyone.
But the urge to share with Izzy sends the words spilling out of my mouth. “I was stationed in Iraq,” I say softly. “It was the middle of the night when I got the call about my father.”
Julia was sobbing too hard for me to make out most of the words, but two were all I needed.
Car accident.
I knew without another word what had happened. Not specifics, but I could have guessed. It was only a matter of time.
“It was a road rage incident,” I tell Izzy softly.
Her eyes widen. “You mean someone got angry and hit him?”
“No, my father.” I swallow back the familiar mix of sadness and anger. “He was famous for his temper. Someone would cut him off in traffic and he’d slam on the brakes and get out of the car to yell at them.”
Izzy frowns. “That sounds…dangerous.”
“It was.” I pause to watch Kevin sniff a patch of slushy snow caked into the grass. “Once, when I was just learning to drive, he stuck his hand out the window and flipped off someone he thought was going too slow. Turned out it was my science teacher.”
“Goodness.” Izzy’s eyes search mine. “That must have been humiliating.”
“It wasn’t awesome.” As soon as I got home, I emailed an apology to Mr. Snyderman. I half expected him to dock me a grade, but I ended up passing with flying colors. “Anyway, that kind of thing happened all the time.”
Izzy’s brow furrows like she’s trying to wrap her head around a parent who’d behave that way. Maybe she can relate to having a father who bore no resemblance to Ward Cleaver. Between the Duke—a man known for his sketchy record on humanitarian issues—and Cort Bracelyn—a serial philanderer she never met—Izzy’s hardly had the best paternal influence.
“Did he—” She frowns, trying to conjure the right words. “Did someone hurt him in a road rage incident?”
I shake my head and wonder if that might have been easier to deal with. If I could direct my anger at the assailant instead of my own father.
“He got frustrated behind a slow-moving farm truck.” It was hauling manure from a nearby ranch, a detail that made the story more titillating for town gossips. “He passed in a no-passing zone and then overcorrected when an oncoming semi crested the hill.”
“Oh, no.” Izzy draws a hand to her mouth. “How horrible.”
“That’s not the worst part.” Because of course, it gets worse. “My mother was in the car beside him. She remembers the whole thing. Careening out of control into a big sign in front of the Baptist church.”
“A sign?”
“It was mounted on this low stone wall, so they hit that first.” I take a hit of icy air. “That week’s sermon was all about forgiveness, so their reader-board had a quote from Proverbs: ‘Fools give full vent to their rage, but the wise bring calm in the end.’”
“Oh, dear.” Iz looks at me with tear-filled eyes. “Bradley, that’s horrible.” Her voice trembles, and she stops walking to touch my arm. “Was your mother hurt?”
“Pretty badly, yeah. Julia was in college back east, and I was right at the end of my first tour in Iraq. I’d been planning on another, but my obligation was up, so it just made sense to come home.”
I switched to the Army Reserves and somehow got lucky enough to land an instructorship in the general practice program at the local hospital. Possibly it wasn’t luck. My small-town roots, the fact that I knew everyone in town, may have paid off. I’ll never know for sure, but I suspect someone felt sorry for me.
“I got to take care of my mom when she needed me,” I continue. “And after a while, I started my own practice.”
I’m leaving out a few details, like how bummed I was to leave active duty, or the way my mom blamed herself for what happened. “I should have tried to calm him down,” she kept saying.
Like that would have made a difference. Like it ever made a difference in decades of my father’s fury.
We’ve stopped walking again, Izzy pausing to let Kevin nibble the edge of a shrub. Izzy stands watching me, her face upturned in the milky winter light. Wrapping Kevin’s leash around her wrist, she bites her lip.
“That’s such a sad story.” She hesitates. “Would it be okay if I hugged you?”
“Of course.” My foolish heart hopes it’s fondness and not pity, but I’ll take what I can get.
Her cheeks flush just a little. Then she slides her arms around my middle and squeezes tight. My own arms circle her waist by instinct, pulling her against me. As she bu
rrows against my chest, she gives a soft little sigh.
I brace for words of sympathy.
I’m sorry for your loss.
That must have been terrible.
But that’s not what she murmurs against the front of my coat. “God, you feel good.”
The instant she says it, she stiffens in my arms. It’s like the words slipped out without her consent, and she’s fumbling for a way to backpedal. “I mean, I’m so sor—”
“Don’t.” Breathing in the scent of her hair, I will her not to draw back. “I liked what you said the first time.”
“Really?” She does draw back, but only to look up at me. “It wasn’t very sympathetic.”
“I’ve had plenty of sympathy.” I stare into the bright green of her eyes and see a question there. “That’s not what I need.”
“What do you need?” Her question is barely a whisper, but there’s heat in her eyes. “Tell me.”
I swallow hard, sensing the gravity of this moment. That I could say the wrong thing and send her skittering away like a startled animal.
“Izzy.” I lift a hand to brush her hair back from her face. She closes her eyes and leans into my touch, her cheek soft and warm against my palm. “Izzy.” I whisper her name again, uttering it like a prayer.
Her lashes flutter open, and she gives a tentative smile. “Is that your answer?”
“What?”
“I asked what you needed and you said my name.”
God. I don’t know the right answer here, the one that won’t send her running scared. I’m still deciding what to say when she stretches up on tiptoe and brushes my lips with hers. It’s more experimental touch than kiss, but she doesn’t draw back.
“It’s what I want,” she murmurs, her breath warm against my chin. “So I was hoping maybe—”
I kiss her then, smothering the rest of her words as my mouth meets hers. She responds like I’ve flicked a light switch, tilting her head to deepen the kiss. This Izzy is passionate and hungry, and I’m struggling to catch my breath when her tongue grazes mine.