by Rachel Hanna
“No, I cannot. Maybe try writing him a letter?”
Faith hung her head and walked away from the window. Why would her father block her from visiting? How could he drop a bomb on her like this and then hide in his cell? None of this made any sense to her.
As she walked to her car, she thought about how her life had seemingly blown up in front of her. She’d lost her mother and now her father. Her boyfriend had dumped her. Friends had scattered, no longer taking her calls or meeting up for their weekly lunch dates. She was flat broke with just a small savings account to start her life over.
And yet none of those things had been in her control. That’s what made it so hard to stomach.
“Well, fine, Dad. Don’t talk to me,” she muttered as she started her car. She sat there for a moment, staring at the prison. “I’m so mad at you,” she said through tears. “But I love you, Daddy. Be safe.”
And with that, Faith decided to leave Virginia and head to January Cove to find some answers one way or another.
Chapter 2
Faith pulled into January Cove on fumes, too tired to stop at the gas station and not realizing there wasn’t going to be another one for miles. Driving her “new” beat-up compact car hadn’t been nearly as comfortable as she’d hoped, but at least it had gotten her there. As she parked her car in front of Addy’s Inn, the place where she’d made reservations, she was struck by the quaintness of the small beach town.
Virginia had always been her home, but she could see how people would want to live in this place. It was smaller than she was used to, but cute and wholesome looking, like out of some 1950s storybook.
Still, she already missed the mall. Faith had always been a social butterfly, flitting between events and shopping excursions. Her father had spoiled her something fierce, even into adulthood. It was hard to believe that those days were over. She didn’t know any other way of life.
The Inn was cozy looking and definitely historical. She stepped out of her car, her overnight bag slung over one shoulder and her suitcase in her other hand, and locked the door.
January Cove was cute, but it was a far cry from the big city. She doubted that there would be any upscale boutiques or private tennis clubs here. It was just as well since she was flat broke and her short-term rental would use up the rest of what she had in savings. Still, she had a reputation to maintain, even if she was the only person she knew in this town. Maintaining her dignity was important; at least that was what her parents had always taught her.
As she walked down the sidewalk toward the set of stairs leading up to the grounds of the Inn, she was suddenly knocked off her feet by a large furry animal. She hit the ground sideways, her expensive suitcase flying over her head. The animal, which she had now identified as a fluffy dog of some kind, was licking her face and wagging its tail.
“Scooter! Scooter! No!” she heard a man yelling in the background. Suddenly, Scooter flew backward and she could see the sky again. And a man with a worried look on his face. A very handsome man, actually.
“Are you okay, ma’am?” he asked, kneeling down beside her.
“I… I think so,” she stammered. But she wasn’t totally okay. Her knee was hurting pretty bad, like those times she had scraped it riding her bike as a kid. Those times when her father had tended to it. Her father.
“You’re bleeding,” he said, looking down at her knee.
“It’s fine. I just need to…” she started to stand up, but she felt light headed so she laid back down. “Is the street moving?”
“Uh oh. You might’ve hit your head. I’m calling this one in.”
She had no idea what that meant, but soon she heard him on the phone. The dog was now tied to the lamppost.
“I’m so sorry,” he said once he hung up. “Scooter gets a little excited when he goes for a walk.”
“Yeah, well maybe you should keep better control of him then,” she growled. Her knee was burning, and although the lightheadedness seemed to have passed, she wasn’t about to chance getting up again.
“Noted.”
“Oh my goodness, are you okay?” Faith heard a female voice behind her. The woman knelt down on her other side, a concerned look on her face.
“Well, I’ve been better,” Faith muttered.
“Of course,” the woman said with a sad smile. “What can I do?”
Now the man was standing up, looking down the road impatiently as he held the leashes of at least three dogs that she could see. She watched him for a brief moment and couldn’t help but notice how good looking he was. But then the pain in her knee took over the part of her brain that said staring at strange, albeit sexy, men wasn’t top on the list of things to do right now.
“Maybe help me sit up and lean against the wall?” Faith finally said.
The woman helped her scoot backward and get her back against the cold rock wall. Faith took a deep breath as she tried to straighten her legs in front of her.
“Here,” the man said to the woman as he pulled his sweatshirt off, revealing a tight gray t-shirt underneath, and tossed it to her. She rolled it up and put it under Faith’s hurt knee.
“I’m Addy,” the woman said, obviously trying to make small talk while they waited for something. She wasn’t sure what they were waiting for exactly.
“I’m Faith. Wait, Addy? As in the owner of this inn?”
Addy smiled. “The very same one.”
“Well, this is ironic. I’m your new guest.”
“Miss McLemore?”
“That would be me.”
“I’m so sorry. How did this happen?”
“It was my fault. Scooter got away from me,” the guy said, his face contorted in pain. Or maybe embarrassment at his inability to hold onto his enormous, slobbery dog.
“Scooter can be a handful,” Addy said. Just then, Faith heard the sound of a siren screeching down the street.
“Oh dear Lord. You didn’t call an actual ambulance for a skinned knee, did you?” Faith asked.
The man smiled. “Better safe than sorry.”
“A bit dramatic, don’t you think?”
“You were dizzy just a few minutes ago. I’m not taking any chances. Could be a concussion.”
“I didn’t hit my head.”
“Or whiplash.”
“My neck feels fine.”
“Hard headed much?” he asked, a hint of sarcasm in his voice. Addy giggled under her breath.
“You two sound like an old married couple.” When she didn’t get laughter from either of them, she cleared her throat and stood up. “Why don’t I take the dogs?”
“Thanks,” the guy said, handing the leashes to Addy before walking toward the ambulance.
“Don’t worry. Brandon will take good care of you,” she said with a smile before walking back toward the inn, pulling on multiple leashes as she led them up the stairs.
“Wait, what?” Faith said, but Addy was already out of earshot. Okay, so good looking dog walker guy’s name was apparently Brandon.
“So what happened here?” a young paramedic asked as he walked up with a large bag slung over his shoulder.
“Well, I was walking like a normal human being when a large furry animal knocked me down. Apparently the dog walker isn’t great at his job,” she said, her teeth gritted as the pain set in. Her knee felt like it was literally on fire.
“Dog walker…” the paramedic said with a confused look on his face as he looked over at Brandon.
“Yeah, apparently Scooter is a mastermind and I didn’t know it,” Brandon said, cutting the paramedic off.
“Let’s take a look at that knee,” the guy said as he gingerly slid her loose fitting yoga pants up her leg to reveal a pretty nasty skinned knee.
“Ouch ouch ouch…”
“Sorry. I’m going to clean this up and then I’ll put something on it to deaden the pain a bit, okay?”
She nodded her head and closed her eyes. Her pain tolerance had always been low. Paper cuts were enough to s
end her over the edge most of the time. And now she had a skinned knee and torn yoga pants. And these were her last pair of the expensive kind. The last vestige of her old life.
A stray tear rolled down her cheek. Not because of the pain, but because of the loss. She was in a foreign place with people she’d never seen, and everything she’d owned was basically gone. Right there in the middle of the main street in January Cove, she felt naked and exposed to the whole world.
“You okay?” Brandon asked as he knelt beside her while the paramedic ran back to the ambulance to get the spray.
Faith looked over at him. “Um, not really. This wasn’t in my plans for the day.”
“I don’t know how else to say I’m sorry.”
“Look, you can go on home. Rescue Addy from your unruly dogs, okay? The EMT will patch me right up and we can both move on with our lives.” She leaned her head back and sighed. The paramedic, whose name she still didn’t know, came back with a very cold spray and coated her sore knee. Within a few moments, the pain had lessened greatly.
Brandon didn’t respond to her request for him to leave, but instead turned his attention to the EMT. “We need to transport her to the ER for observation. She almost fainted, and I want to be sure she doesn’t have a concussion.”
“Excuse me, sir, but I don’t need you requesting medical services for me. I’ll be just fine. I certainly don’t need a big bill from the ambulance company.”
Brandon smiled slightly and looked at the EMT. “I’ll transport her in my Jeep then.”
“Um no, I won’t be riding with a complete stranger.”
Brandon looked at the paramedic and smiled. “You can trust me, I promise.”
“Isn’t that what every serial killer says to his victim just before he throws her in the trunk of his beat up compact car?”
“Wow, that was a little specific. Listen, Joe here will tell you I’m trustworthy. Plus the hospital is literally three blocks away.”
Joe. The paramedic’s name was Joe. How incredibly basic, she thought to herself.
“Ma’am, I really do think you need to be checked out by Dr. Becker. He’s our ER doctor, and he’ll get you in and out quickly,” Joe said, smiling at her with his perfectly straight, white teeth. She was almost sure he was a Boy Scout at some point in his past.
Faith sat for a moment and stared back and forth at the men. Maybe they were right. Her head was hurting a little, and she didn’t want to start her trip off by dying.
“Fine. I’ll ride with you.”
“Great. Let me just take your bags up to Addy. She can get your room all ready for when you get back.”
“Wonderful,” Faith said with her voice dripping in sarcasm.
Three blocks was a long ride when the woman sitting next to you was ticked off and nonverbal, but Brandon was going to try his best to make her smile.
That was his personality. He wanted to see people happy. Sometimes that had been his downfall, but today it was his focus. Make this very uppity woman who was obviously not from around here actually crack a smile.
“So, where did you come from?”
“What?” she asked, staring straight ahead at the road.
“You’re visiting January Cove, right?”
“Well, yeah, seeing as how I was checking into Addy’s.”
“Right. So are you here for business or pleasure?”
She sighed. “Do you always talk this much?”
“Yes. Most people like it.”
“Really? Interesting.”
Again, she stopped talking. Thank God they were almost there. He’d get her out of the car, make sure she saw the doctor and didn’t sneak out the back door, and get back to his house before dark.
“Not a dog lover?”
“Actually, I like dogs when they’re well behaved.”
“Well, dogs are like people sometimes. They just get excited and overwhelmed with enthusiasm.”
She chuckled under her breath, but it wasn’t a happy laugh. More of an ironic one. “I wouldn’t know.”
Her response made him sad. No. He wasn’t going there. It wasn’t his job to make this bitter, strange woman happy.
“Here we are,” he said as he pulled up to the ER door.
“Great. Thanks for the ride,” she said as she quickly grabbed for the door handle.
“I’m coming in with you.”
She turned to him, her eyebrows stitched together. “No, you’re not. That’s where I draw the line.”
“You don’t need to be alone. In a medical setting, you should always have someone…”
“If I say okay, will you stop talking for awhile?”
Brandon ran two of his fingers across his lips as if he was zipping his mouth shut. He knew it wouldn’t last.
Faith hobbled into the ER and walked up to the desk, Brandon hot on her heels.
“Reason for your visit?” the woman asked from behind the counter.
“I was run over by this guy’s unruly dog and hurt my knee,” she said, cutting her eyes at Brandon. He smirked.
“Possible concussion as well. She was faint at the scene. Wound was dressed by Joe. Stitches weren’t required.”
“Why do you use so many words?” she asked shaking her head.
“Name?” the woman asked.
“Faith McLemore.”
Faith. That was her name. He realized he hadn’t asked yet. She didn’t look like a Faith. Maybe a Tiffany or a Heather, but not a Faith.
Even after toppling to the ground and getting a banged up knee, she was a beautiful, well put together woman with nice, designer clothing and one of those luggage sets you’d see advertised in a high end travel magazine.
She just didn’t feel like a Faith.
“You can bring her back to the triage room, Brandon,” the woman said. Faith looked at him confused.
“Why does everyone seem to know you?” she asked as he led her to a back hallway.
“Small town,” Brandon said, shrugging his shoulders.
Faith leaned back against the hospital bed, her knee elevated on a rather flat pillow. What was this guy’s deal? Why was he so well known and interested in the status of her health?
By far, this was the strangest little town she’d ever visited.
Brandon had finally left her alone for a moment. She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath, trying to summon the calming energy of her former yoga teacher back home.
Coming to January Cove to try to uncover her past had been hard enough, but to start her trip this way had deflated her in so many ways. Maybe it was a sign from the Universe that she should go back to Virginia and leave well enough alone.
“Dr. Becker will be in shortly,” a nurse said, poking her head into the doorway. Faith nodded and leaned back again.
She’d just wanted to unpack her car, get settled in her room and devise a plan to figure out where she came from.
The information her father had given her had been sparse to say the least. Just the name of a town and the possible age of her birth mother. That wasn’t a lot to go on, especially since she didn’t even know if she was born in January Cove in the first place.
In the two weeks since she’d been to see her Dad, she’d called, tried to visit again and written a letter that was returned to her. It was hurtful and frustrating.
The father she’d known, the man who had taken her to father-daughter dances and out for ice cream sundaes (on Sunday, of course), was a stranger now. She didn’t know this person, this “new” man who would abandon her when they both needed each other.
For the first time ever, she felt truly alone in the world. No Mom. No Dad. No boyfriend. No real friends.
If she kept up this way of thinking, the ER doctor might just transfer her right over to the mental hospital.
“The doctor hasn’t come in yet?” Brandon asked as he pushed back the flimsy curtain that was separating her from the rest of the truly sick people in the ER.
“Nope. Not yet.”
“He should be here soon. Dr. Becker is a fantastic physician. He retired here about twenty years ago from Chicago.”
Faith laughed. “He came from Chicago to this place?”
Brandon eyed her carefully. “Believe it or not, a lot of people choose to move here. It’s a wonderful place to live and raise a family.”
Faith shrugged her shoulders. “To each his own, I suppose.”
“Okay, so what is your idea of a great place to retire to then?” Brandon asked as he sat down in a chair next to the bed.
Faith thought for a moment. “The south of France. A villa beside the aqua blue water. A full housekeeping staff, of course. And a personal vegan chef familiar with the local cuisine.”
“Wow, that was also oddly specific. You’re vegan, huh?”
“I am.”
“Don’t you ever miss a nice juicy steak?” Brandon asked, a grin on his face.
“Are you trying to start an argument?”
He sat back and sighed. “No, not really. But you do strike me as the type who likes to argue.”
“Oh really? And you know so much about me, do you?”
“I know your type.”
Faith seethed. What right did this guy have to judge her based on the little bit of time he’d known her, especially since he was the reason she was sitting in the ER in the first place.
“You don’t know as much as you think you do,” she said, leaning back with her arms crossed.
“Sorry for the delay,” Dr. Becker said as he pulled back the curtain. “Had a little emergency with a nursing home patient. Faith, I presume?”
The older man was tall and thin, his thick head of white hair looking like fresh snowfall had landed.
“Yes.”
“I hear you took a tumble after Scooter got a little out of hand…”
“I’d say out of hand is an understatement,” Faith said. “Brandon here apparently doesn’t have a very tight grip.”
“Faith…” Brandon started to say.
“I mean really, who has a dog they can’t control any better than that? My clothes are covered in hair and slobber. Do you know how much this sweater cost? It’s cashmere!”