by Norah Wilson
She climbed up into the loft, grabbed the Hudson’s Bay blanket she found there, and scooted back down. Settling on the love seat, she reclined her side and pulled the blanket over herself. Then she glanced sideways at Jace. He wasn’t shivering or anything, but she knew he was likely to be on the cool side from being so stationary. Grumbling to herself, she lifted the blanket and fanned it over both of them.
Then she dug her phone out and texted Scott. Still w/ patient, she typed. She paused, fingers hovering over the touchpad as she debated whether to tell him she was staying the night. She bit her lip. No, she’d break that news later, closer to full dark when travel would be problematic. Otherwise she might find Scott knocking at the cabin’s door. She signed off with her usual E and hit send.
Instead of pocketing her iPhone, she selected an audiobook from her library, a hot new romantic suspense. In recent years, she hadn’t had much time to read anything, and certainly not for pleasure. But with the explosion of audiobooks, she was now able to listen to voice actors read to her while she was commuting or exercising or doing housework. She often managed to read a book a week that way.
She thought about getting up to fetch her headphones from her backpack, but decided against it. She was too comfortable. The phone’s external speakers would do, especially with Jace out like a light. She flipped up the foot support and settled back to listen.
An hour later, she stopped the audiobook and texted Scott to tell him that given the weather, she was staying the night with the patient. Her phone buzzed immediately with a call from her brother, but she let it go into voice mail. Then it buzzed to alert her to a text. As expected, he was madder than a wet hen. Who is this patient? She replied that patient confidentiality precluded her naming him, but that she could handle one gimped up guy, and to quit wringing his hands. After promising to check in with him in the morning, she’d signed off and re-started the audiobook. Lying back again, she let the narrator’s sexy male voice carry her away.
Chapter 4
“UNCLE ARDEN?”
Cordless phone pressed to his ear, Arden Standish leaned against the cupboard, looking around the familiar kitchen with a knot in his stomach. Titus’s computer was tucked in a corner by the much-used microwave, beneath a shelf of never-used cookbooks. Margaret’s aloe vera plant still sat on the windowsill. He looked at the china cabinet. His wife’s Christmas dishes sat there still, shut behind glass. How he’d hate to see those go…
“Hello?” Scott said. “You still there?”
Arden blinked. “Sorry,” he said into the phone. “Just thinking about… Well, you know how an old man’s mind drifts.”
“Yeah, right,” Scott scoffed. “You’re only sixty-five. There’s nothing wrong with your mind. And you can still kick my butt at Jeopardy.”
He chuckled. “Not on the movie questions.”
“Especially on the movie questions.”
“Been a while since we’ve played,” Arden said. “Maybe we can have a rematch some night next week?” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them. Scott was always in such a hurry to get away. He might be planning to be gone as soon as Thanksgiving was over. “No pressure, though. I know you have places to go, things to do.”
“Yeah, but probably not before we fit in a Jeopardy or two, huh?”
“That’d be nice.” He cleared his throat. “So you’ll let me know if you need anything, right? The Jeep is all gassed up. Wouldn’t take fifteen minutes for me to get out there.”
“I will. Thanks, Uncle Arden. Night.”
“Goodnight, Son.”
Arden hung up. He would not be hearing from Scott. Not unless it was a bone fide, hell-breaking-loose emergency. He wouldn’t want to worry the old man. Arden shook his head. That was Scott. Tough as nails. Protective of his family.
Even if that love was shown only in bits and pieces.
Arden smiled.
It wasn’t just the family that had embraced Scott when he’d landed in Harkness all those years ago. The land had too. Maybe more than it had the other kids. More than Ember, certainly. Oh, she had no complaints, but the town had never seemed big enough for her. Titus had stayed around. He knew the work; did most of it by himself now. But oddly, it was Scott who connected with the land.
Their land.
The Standish homestead, bought by his moonshine-running mother and the love of her life, Edward Standish, over eighty years ago. When Arden had finally come along—a surprise for a middle-aged couple who’d reconciled themselves to being childless—he’d been born upstairs in this very house. Surprise number two came along a few years later, Booker Standish. As the eldest son, Arden had happily quit school at the age of sixteen to work the land with his aging parents. Booker had gone on to attend university, eventually settling in Minnesota.
So many good memories from his own childhood, and later with Margaret and their children. Titus learning how to drive the tractor—half-scared but determined to master the beast. Scott running through the orchard with Axl, then a foolish pup, racing circles around him.
Then there was Ember.
A small chuckle rose from his throat. He used to catch lightning bugs with her on warm summer evenings. They’d put them in a Mason jar with nail-holes pounded through the tin lid. Afterward, he’d sit on the step with his brilliant and curious little girl as she studied the fireflies, turning the glass jar to watch them crawl and flit around inside.
Now his little girl was with Jace Picard.
He rubbed his temple. God, he hoped he’d done the right thing.
When it worked out that Ember would be the one taking the Parker and Ward’s parcel out to a stranded Jace, he had taken a chance. He’d conveniently forgotten the name Danny Parker had given him.
The hell of it was, he didn’t really even know what he was hoping for by sending Ember out there.
That she and Jace would somehow rekindle? Or failing that, at least talk out whatever had happened all those years ago. Make peace with it.
Or had he been hoping for something else? Something more selfish?
Dammit! An old man’s foolish hopes…it was all gone!
He looked again at the china cabinet and sighed. Margaret’s Christmas dishes—he’d start with those.
Chapter 5
JACE’S DREAM was incredibly vivid.
Fantastically rich.
A little bit wild.
He dreamed of a beautiful woman with flaming red hair. She was standing in a floor-length red sheath dress that was slit enticingly high up the left leg. The bodice hugged her breasts and hips like a shimmery second skin.
It was Ember.
She walked toward him across a deserted, rain-slicked stretch of pavement, hips swaying seductively. Planes flew overhead in a star-studded sky. In the background he saw a building with a glassed-in box on top. An airport control tower. The flashing lights in the distance were beacons and the pavement Ember crossed was the tarmac. With the wind blowing through her hair, she walked on.
Jace closed in on her, swaggering forth in a tailored tuxedo. Despite the headache that nagged at him, he smiled and undid his bow tie, leaving it to hang loose. He stopped in front of her, smelling her scent, watching the light and dark play on her hair, seeing the smile on her face, arousal in her eyes. Then in a deep, manly, voice, dream-Ember opened her mouth and said: “Chapter 11”
Jace’s eyes sprang open. What the hell?
Ember—the real Ember—stirred beside him on the love seat, face pressed into his shoulder beneath the Hudson’s Bay blanket she must have retrieved from upstairs.
“Dax grasped Bella’s bared shoulders gently. Despite the rapidly cooling evening air, her skin felt warm beneath his fingers. She was so alive in that flame-red dress. The look she gave him was both amused and challenging. She was practically daring him to kiss her. But he wouldn’t, not until she wanted him to. No. Not until she begged him to.”
Huh. An audiobook. That would account for the “dream” he
’d been having. The voice droned on about Dax and Bella’s encounter on the tarmac. He lifted his head and craned his neck to try to see his watch on the side table, but the movement sent a shard of pain ricocheting through his head. He closed his eyes against it, stifling a groan.
Poorly, apparently. Ember pulled away, then scrambled to sit up and shut off the narrator.
“How’s the ankle?” she asked.
“A bit better, I think. It’s this mother of a headache I could do without.” He rubbed his temple. “Hell, I could do without the whole head right about now.”
Ember got up to stand in front of him. She leaned to his right and grabbed his flashlight from beside the chair.
“Okay look into the light, please,” she instructed.
Was she kidding? Just the thought of looking into that light made him want to vomit. “Is this one of those kill me or cure me scenarios?”
She bit her lip and lowered the flashlight. “I made a mistake.”
He slanted her a look.
“Earlier this evening, I mean,” she rushed to clarify. “Not years ago when we…parted company.”
Yeah, it was getting more civil in here by the minute.
Dammit. What time was it? He turned his head again, this time more cautiously, but his wristwatch was face down. If his head wasn’t pounding, he’d sit up and reach for it.
He glanced at the woodstove. Judging by the temperature, the fire must have burned nearly out, so at least a few hours had passed...
Ember picked the watch up. After squinting to see the time for herself, she announced, “Half past midnight.”
Her words were out of the blue, but just as uncannily timed as they’d always been.
He held out his hand for the watch. “I didn’t ask.”
She handed it to him. “No, but I knew you were about to.”
“Oh really?” He slid the watch onto his wrist.
“Yes, really. You’re so predictable. You always had to know the time.”
He shrugged. “People change.”
“Not so much on stuff like that.”
“Really,” he said. “Then you still carry it around?”
She tilted her head. “What?”
“A barrette for your hair.”
He’d meant the remark as a one up, or at least an equalizer in some weird, challenging way he couldn’t even explain. Yet as soon as the words were out, he felt the intimacy of them. How many times had he pulled a barrette from her hair to run his hands through its silkiness? How many times had she unclipped it herself and shaken it out, leaving it drifting and swirling around her shoulders like wildfire?
“Well, smartass,” she said, “you’ll notice I’m not wearing a barrette.”
“Which means it’s either in your jacket pocket or that backpack.”
She sighed. “Okay, you got me. One in both.”
He grinned and looked at his watch again. How had he managed to sleep until midnight? They’d been talking and then...dammit, he didn’t even remember falling asleep. But obviously he had. And he’d stayed asleep for a good six hours.
Which begged the question, why was she still here?
Suddenly the wind gusted outside, elevating the droning sound he’d just begun to notice into a roar. It whistled eerily around the edges of the cabin and rattled the windows before subsiding again to the previous droning level.
He glanced up at Ember. “How long’s the wind been up?”
“Since late afternoon.”
“Is that why you’re still here? Didn’t want to fight the wind?”
She shrugged. “It was getting dark too. Not a good combination. Plus there was that thing about wanting to make sure I didn’t accidentally medicate you into a coma.”
Medicate him into a coma? What did that mean? He searched his memory again, but came up empty.
“Okay, enough stalling. Look into the light for me.”
He looked up at her. “Must I?”
It was definitely Doctor Standish staring back. All business. “Just for a second.”
He complied.
“Good.” She lowered the flashlight. “Now follow my finger.”
He stared up into her eyes.
“The finger, Jace. Not my face.”
He dropped his gaze and followed her finger as she moved it slowly to his left. Then right. She nodded, apparently satisfied. “I’ll give you some ibuprofen for that headache, but we really need to get something into your stomach first.” She dug in that bottomless knapsack of hers again and produced an energy bar which she handed to him. Then she picked up the bottle of ibuprofen from the side table and shook two pills out.
He detested those bars, but with both head and ankle throbbing, he unwrapped one and ate it quickly, then accepted the pills and bottled water she offered. The warm water soothed his parched throat, so he drank some more of it.
She turned her attention to his injury. Her face was a mask of intensity as she unwrapped the compress, but there was compassion there too. And when she touched his still-swollen ankle, he could feel the gentleness in her confident touch.
“Does that refrigerator have a freezer?” she asked.
The question struck him as funny. “Yup. A meat drawer and a vegetable crisper too. I can recommend it.”
She rolled her eyes. “Ice is what I was getting at. It wouldn’t hurt to apply some before we rewrap it.”
“Ah, of course. And yes, there’s ice.” He knew that because there hadn’t been ice when he arrived. It was the first thing he’d thought of to treat the ankle, once he realized there were no meds in any of the cabinets or cupboards. But all he’d found in the freezer was the empty tray. He’d refilled it.
He heard her open and close the small freezer compartment, then the rattle of ice cubes being dumped onto the counter. He smiled when he heard the water running in the kitchen sink and knew she was refilling the tray. That was the Ember he knew, always thinking ahead, planning for the future. There would never be empty ice cube trays under her watch. The freezer opened and closed again. After a few more rustling sounds, she returned with ice wrapped in a thin dishtowel.
She positioned herself at the end of his foot rest and lowered the ice pack onto his ankle. “Is that too heavy?” She glanced up at him. “I can take some ice out if the weight is causing pain.”
It did hurt, but not much more than without the weight, and he knew the cold would more than compensate for it. The more ice, the better. “No, it’s good.”
She rearranged the pack slightly, tucking the bulky cubes in closer. “You really should keep a bag of frozen peas in the freezer. They make a great cold compress. Molds better to the injury.”
“I’ll take that under advisement, Doc. And I won’t be caught without painkillers again.”
His words hung there, both of them aware that the painkillers were what brought her out here.
He cleared his throat. “So, it’s after midnight. Does that mean your brothers are going to burst through that door any minute and lay a thrashing on me?”
“Nope.” She bent and rearranged the ice pack again.
“But they know you’re out here with me for the night?”
“I let Scott know I was staying the night.” She stood up again. “I just didn’t reveal that you’re the patient.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “How’d you dodge that? I can’t see Scott being very happy about you staying out in the woods with a strange man.” For that matter, he didn’t imagine Titus would be too pleased either.
“Patient confidentiality. Plus I reminded Scott that the patient was too gimped up to pose a threat to a kitten.”
He grimaced. “Ouch, right in the ego. But true.”
“How’s the headache?”
“Actually, it’s a lot better.” Until she’d asked, he hadn’t even realized that the pain was lifting. His ankle was feeling better too, but he knew that was probably mostly the ice. “I can’t imagine what I did to deserve it, though.”
Ember bit her lip. “I really am sorry about that.”
“About what?”
“I shouldn’t have given you those pills last night.”
“What pills?”
Her face went still. “You don’t remember?”
He looked up at her, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He really didn’t remember much after she said she’d make something for supper.
“What happened?” He hated this stricken feeling of not knowing. Another reason why he limited himself to just one or two drinks—always. He’d learned that lesson once. “Oh shit, did I say any—”
“No! Nothing like that—at all.” She drew a breath. “It’s just that I had no idea that you’d been drinking. Especially so early in the day. But it should have occurred to me that—”
“I don’t normally drink in the daytime,” he said, feeling compelled to defend himself. “Hell, I don’t drink much at any time. I don’t usually even pack booze when I come out here, but this weekend I tossed that partial bottle of vodka in my backpack. And since I had the booze but I didn’t have painkillers, I figured the five o’clock somewhere rule applied.”
“Why this weekend then?”
He shrugged. “I’m not much for the holidays.”
“Since your father died?”
“Yeah.”
Sure. He’d go with that. It was partially true. But the real reason he’d packed a three-day backpack and headed out here was that he knew Ember would be in town. And having a drink or two while he sat the weekend out alone had seemed like a pretty good idea.
She moved to stand by the love seat, close to his shoulder. “I owe you an apology, Jace. I asked about allergies, but I also should have asked if you’d had any alcohol before I gave you that pill.”
That was odd. “But I asked for the ibuprofen. The pharmacist sent it. Why would you feel bad about giving it to me?”
“I gave you one of my Tramadols.” She watched his face carefully. “You really don’t remember?”
“No, I don’t remember any—” A sound bite flashed through his mind, a snippet of their conversation. He pushed again for the memory and was rewarded with a fragment. “Wait, was there something about a dentist?”