by Norah Wilson
She disappeared into the bathroom and he turned his thoughts to getting ready. He limped over to the chair and grabbed his jeans. Their dampness had him thinking seriously about sticking with his sweats, but he quickly discarded the idea. He never wore sweat pants outside of his house or the gym, and he wasn’t about to start now. He dressed in the jeans and a dry flannel shirt from his backpack. It would be good to get into the car and get some serious heat going.
He bent to retrieve his briefcase, plunking it on the bed beside his backpack. Only then did he realize he’d been moving around the room without crutches. Limping, of course, and not putting much weight on the injured ankle. But just the fact that it wasn’t screaming at him to sit the hell down was a huge improvement. It must be starting to heal.
His eyes fell on the slender briefcase again.
He thumbed in the three digit combination and opened the case. The contract for the purchase of the Standish lands lay on top of the other files. Terry had assigned Jace to handle all acquisitions, but he’d been especially keen for his little brother—stepbrother—to handle this one. He thought—correctly—that the Standishs would trust Jace more than they would trust him. It had also suited Terry’s twisted sense of humor to hand Jace the power to hurt Ember.
Now Jace held the contract he’d negotiated in his hands.
He would show her this and all the other documents. He would explain everything. Just not until they got back from seeing Bridget Northrup. And when he told Ember everything, she’d understand.
God, he hoped.
Ember emerged from the bathroom. He clicked the briefcase shut and turned toward her.
Wow. In a matter of a few minutes, she’d done something amazing to her hair. It looked liked she’d twisted it all up, then tucked it together somehow into a wide knot at the back of her neck. Not high up on top of her head, which he thought could look harsh, but low on her nape. She looked fantastic.
“That was quick.”
“Practice.” She shrugged. “When I was a med student, I learned lots of ways to make dirty hair look passable.”
“Passable?” he said. “It’s beautiful. How’d you do that?”
“Thank you.” She touched the the back of her head. “It’s actually three fat braids, each made into its own bun, then all pinned together to look like one piece.”
“And it’s all yours?”
Her brows shot up. “Who else’s would it be?”
“You’d be surprised. Nothing like trying to take a woman’s up-do down and pulling out clip-in hair extensions.”
She laughed. “You’ve done that.”
“Once. I’m a quick learner.”
“Now you can spot the extensions?”
“Hell, no. I’m still clueless about that stuff. I just let the lady take it down herself.”
“Smart.” Still smiling, she went over to the nightstand, picked up a convenience store bag he’d presumed was empty and pulled out a bright pink scarf. Crossing to the mirror mounted on the dresser, she tied the thin fabric around her neck. Apparently satisfied with her reflection, she crossed to him, went up and tiptoe and kissed him.
Jace fingered the scarf. “You were missing it, weren’t you?”
“You know, me and scarves.”
“We’ll go back for that red one as soon as—” It was quick and tight, but Jace caught it—the flash of conflict in her eyes.
“Right.” She pushed the awkwardness back with a smile. “So, are we ready?”
“We’re ready.” He kissed her quickly on top of the head and released her.
Five minutes later, their stuff packed in the car, they stopped to check out of The Gnome Sweet Home for the second time in twenty-four hours.
Mrs. Dufour was sorry to see them go. “Be sure to tell your friends about my little place,” she said to Jace. “Well, your discreet friends. I keep a few rooms fresh and ready.” She gave him a conspiratorial wink. “You don’t even have to be newlyweds stranded in a storm.”
He laughed out loud at that.
Back in the car, Ember drove. She’d tried to get him to take the back seat so he could elevate his ankle, but he refused to be chauffeured so utterly. When she saw how far back the bucket seat would go, she agreed it would be okay for him to ride in front...so long as he was prepared to recline the seat and put his foot up on the dashboard for fifteen minutes of elevation every hour. He’d readily agreed.
They stopped at Tim Hortons and grabbed breakfast sandwiches and coffee. Well, coffee for him, tea for her. Then they hit the road.
He watched the countryside passing by. Yesterday’s wind and rain had ripped a lot of leaves from the trees, but some still clung stubbornly. Mostly yellow ones. With the browned grass, grey maple trunks, and white birch stands, it made for a subtle, understated palette. Beautiful. How could anyone want to leave here?
How could Ember?
“Where will you go?” The words were out before he’d thought about them.
“I thought you had the address?”
“No, not in Edmundston. I mean, after this weekend. Where will you set up your medical practice?”
Her lips pressed thin; her hands tightened on the steering wheel. “I’ve been thinking about California.”
“California?” He felt like he’d just been throat punched. “Wow.”
“Nothing written in stone yet. But…yeah. I’m leaning toward Long Beach.”
“Why California?”
She told him about Joanne and Hannibal’s offer, right down to the attractive buy-in terms and the ready-made roster of patients. “Not that establishing a practice, finding patients, would be difficult anywhere,” she added.
“It’s a great offer,” he conceded. “Though you’ll be working with a guy named Hannibal.”
“No jokes,” she said sternly. “He’s vegan.”
Jace snorted.
“Seriously, they’re good people. And I’d be working in a state-of-the-art facility.”
“Would you enjoy it?”
She flicked him another glance. “Why wouldn’t I? I’d be doing what I studied all my life for—helping people.”
“Like on the highway yesterday.”
She nodded. “Hopefully not quite like that, on the side of the road. But yeah, helping. Speaking of which, Kayla is going to be all right. When I was up in the night, I phoned the Regional and talked to the intensivist who was caring for her.”
“That’s good news. What about her mom?”
“Concussion. They were keeping her overnight for observation.”
Silence fell. A few kilometers rolled past.
“So, you never told me,” Ember said.
His muscles tightened. “Never told you what?”
“About your past romances. Well, other than the thing about pulling out that woman’s hair extension.”
He grinned. “That was pretty funny, though it was pretty mortifying at the time.”
After another brief silence, she prompted him again. “Well, come on, Jace. Aren’t you going to dish? I told you about mine.”
Yeah, but she hadn’t exactly been...comprehensive, had she? She’d left out Terry. Of course, what woman wouldn’t want to leave him off their résumé? He was such a pig when it came to women. A misogynistic jerk.
“So you did,” he said, “but if you’ll remember, you volunteered the information.”
She sent him a surprised look before returning her attention to the highway. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry into anything you’re not comfortable talking about. Obviously, you don’t have to—”
“Just messing with you. I don’t mind talking about it.” Well, he kind of did, but only because he wasn’t terribly proud of some of it. “Let’s just say I’ve had my fair share of lovers over the years.”
“How many is a fair share?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t keeping a tally.”
“More than you could count on the fingers of one hand?”
He pinched the brid
ge of his nose. “Yes. More than the fingers of both hands, probably. But less than fingers and toes combined. Is that good enough?”
“So ten-ish. That’s like...one girlfriend a year.”
“Ember, they weren’t all girlfriends. Some of them were hookups, women I met at parties. Mostly when I was off at university. I was young, away from home, and I couldn’t have the woman I loved.”
Silence stretched so long, he thought the subject had been dropped. Then she spoke again.
“Anyone I know?”
He shook his head. “Probably not.”
“Any that were serious?”
He sighed. “Some had the potential, but none ever made it that far.”
“What happened?”
“I happened.”
She glanced at him. “Care to elaborate?”
No, he did not care to elaborate. Not at this moment, anyway. Fortunately for him, her timing was perfect. He didn’t have to. “Take the next exit.”
“Here?” She took her foot off the gas but didn’t signal. “That’s not the exit to Edmundston.”
“Trust me,” he said. “There’s something I want to show you, and we have the time.”
After the briefest of pauses, she hit the turn signal and slowed for the exit.
Chapter 20
SHAMROCK FALLS? What could Jace have to show her here?
Ember hadn’t been in Shamrock Falls since she was twelve years old, when her mother had brought her here on an outing one summer day. Titus and Scott had been home helping their dad in the fields. For once, Ember got an exemption from chores to go on a mother-daughter jaunt to the neighboring town where Margaret Standish—nee McGill—had grown up. Even now, she smiled at the memory.
They’d set off early, Ember chattering away happily, her mother listening to every word. They’d walked around the town, investigating the places her mother had haunted as a child. When the sun was high in the sky, they’d had lunch in what Ember considered a real restaurant. That is, one where you didn’t look up at a sign above the counter to place your order, or unwrap the food when it came. It was, in fact, an old Victorian-style house with several large, elegant dining rooms. An enterprising local had converted it to a fine dining establishment. Ember had ordered the fanciest thing on the menu she could pronounce. Vichyssoise. It had sounded so fancy. So exotic. So Julia Child! Except it turned out to be cold potato and leek soup, the same stuff her mother made from time to time. Though truthfully, the restaurant version had been so much better. Her mother, of course, had wisely ordered a full-sized entre and shared it with her daughter.
Afterward, they’d gone to see the house where her mother had grown up, a large, red-brick house on Honey Street. Ember got to see the wide front steps where Margaret McGill—long presumed to be destined for spinsterhood at twenty-eight—had been kissed goodnight for the first time by the slightly older Arden Standish.
They hadn’t knocked on the door of that house on Honey Street to bother the new owners. They hadn’t even stood outside and taken pictures. Nevertheless, it had been a perfect mother-daughter time, and Ember hadn’t needed photos to preserve those treasured memories.
But now, as they cruised slowly along the main drag of the quiet downtown, Ember noted there were very few people out and about. And it looked like every other storefront had a For Sale sign in front of it. Even stores she thought would have been thriving—a thrift store, a hunting shop—were closed and shuttered.
It was the economy, she knew. Even Harkness hadn’t escaped the downturn and the out-migration of young workers.
Not so in California.
“Turn here, on the right,” Jace said.
She obliged, and found herself driving through the old town in a westerly direction. If she’d thought Main Street had changed a lot since her mother-daughter adventure, the changes were even more profound in the residential areas.
Many of the houses along the roadsides sported for sale signs, just as the commercial properties had, but it wasn’t just that. While some of the quaint houses were neat and well-kept, many more showed signs of chronic neglect—overgrown lawns, dilapidated fences, weathered siding in need of a coat of paint, curling asphalt roof tiles...
It made Ember’s heart ache to see the once-thriving place so deserted. So many of the residents gone west to seek better opportunities.
“Wow, the recession has really taken a bite out of this place,” she said.
“A very big bite,” Jace agreed.
“Is the whole town like this?”
“Pretty much.” He gestured to the intersection again. “Turn right up there, onto Sunbury Street.”
Ember complied, and he pointed a little ways up the street. “That’s where we’re going, that big building on the left.”
“The ugly grey monstrosity?”
“Yeah.”
Ember turned into the yard and pulled up to the front of the building. What had once been Fredrica’s Fine Furniture, according to the sign, was clearly vacant. But unlike the other shuttered commercial properties, this one had a Sold! sticker plastered across the Realtor’s sign.
She stopped the car and killed the engine. “What’s this?”
“Come see.”
Jace got out of the car and headed toward the building. As Ember levered her own door open, she realized he’d left the crutches in the back seat and was walking with a minimal limp. The treatment was obviously working, but if he wanted it to continue to improve, he had to be careful about putting weight on it. She opened the back door and grabbed his crutches.
She caught up to him in time to see him digging a set of keys out of his jeans pocket. He stopped at the front door, flipping through them.
“Let me guess,” she said. “Company building. I’d heard you guys were buying properties up here.”
He turned the key in the lock and held the heavy glass door open for her. “Not this one.”
The place was cold, barren. A grey concrete floor stretched across the emptiness. The wide but short windows near the ceiling barely let in any sunlight. She looked up. There were big fluorescent lights embedded in the high, industrial ceiling above.
“Where’s the light switch?” she asked.
“Power’s not connected yet.”
“So if this isn’t a WRP property, is it yours?” She handed him the crutches.
“Yep. All mine.” Fitting the crutches under his arms, he moved into the center of the expansive room. Ember walked with him. “You’re currently standing in what is soon to become Shamrock Falls’ first and only boxing club. I’m thinking about calling it O’Bryan’s Boxing Club. That or Spar for the Course.”
“Ha! Spar for the Course! That’s cute. You should reserve the name, before someone else grabs it.”
“Already have. Locked up the URL too. But I kind of like the simplicity of O’Bryan’s. I grabbed that one too.”
“As in Coach Lee O’Bryan, your old boxing coach?”
He nodded.
“Didn’t he just retire from high school coaching last year?”
“That’s right. Worked right up till he was sixty-five. He’d have stayed longer if it weren’t for the school board’s mandatory retirement rules. Especially with Mrs. O’Bryan dying just the year before.”
Ember wasn’t surprised to learn that he’d stayed in touch with his old coach. Jace had been one hell of a boxer, and had been exceedingly dedicated to the sport. Lee O’Bryan had coached him through to winning the provincial championship for his weight class in his senior year.
“So, will Coach O’Bryan be involved with the club?”
“He’s going to run the place. We’ll have a training area over there.” He gestured to the far end of the room. “And the ring right here. It’s going to be fantastic.”
“Do you think there’ll be enough business in Shamrock Falls?”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she wished she could retract them. Unless Arden had gotten slack about updating her, this
was Jace’s first solo business venture. The last thing she wanted to do was knock that smile off his face. But with the hard economic times in the region, was a gym the kind of place where people would spend their money?
She needn’t have worried. His smile didn’t falter. “We’ll see. But I’m not looking to do anything more than break even. I’ve gone over the business plan—I should be there in a couple years. Four tops.” His eyes danced as he looked around the place. “It’ll be good for the area, Ember. Give the young guys a place to hang out. Take up a sport. Work toward goals. Get ripped. Learn sportsmanship. All of it.”
She slanted him a look. “Just the guys?”
“Ah, somebody’s seen Million Dollar Baby.”
Well, yes she had. Eastwood’s best movie, in her opinion. But that was beside the point.
“Step into the twenty-first century, Picard!” She took up a boxing stance and one-two punched him playfully in the shoulder. “Combat sports aren’t just for men anymore.”
“Way ahead of you,” he said. “It’s going to be a co-ed gym. I don’t know how much interest we’ll get from Shamrock Falls’s kinder, gentler sex, but there’ll be a place for them here.”
She smiled. “That’s good. But I’d recommend you not use kinder, gentler sex in your advertising.”
“Okay, good point. But these doors are going to be open to everyone, regardless of gender or age.”
No age limits? Her physician antennae quivered. “Surely you must have minimum age restrictions? I mean, you can’t have little kids boxing.”
“Okay, I take that back. There will be a minimum age requirement, which I’ve left to Coach to work out, but it’s probably younger than you’re thinking. Like maybe six or seven.”
“But—”
“Relax, Ember. We’re not planning kiddie cage matches. The young ones wouldn’t be allowed to spar at all, not until they’re much older, like thirteen or fourteen. Obviously, no heavy bag work, which could injure young bones. But they could be taught the fundamentals—stance, guard, footwork, one-two. And without getting into anything heavy that could stunt their growth, they could safely jump rope, shadowbox, maybe even do some mitt work. Bring them along slowly.”