An hour later, he still hadn’t recovered from the unexpected shock of seeing the same woman standing next to Freckles on the front porch. Nor had he stopped anxiously wiping his mouth or checking his teeth for residual spinach every time he’d passed his reflection in a window. So maybe he’d put on his game face when he’d been formally introduced to her, but she hadn’t exactly been real comfortable in his presence, either.
“You sure she’s your niece?” Kane asked Freckles now, looking out the kitchen window at Dr. Smarty-Pants sitting in her car, frowning at her cell phone. Yeah, he got the message loud and clear. The young woman was a doctor. She saved lives for a living. Apparently she even tried to save lives during her breakfast. He didn’t need a college degree to see that no matter how beautiful she was, she thought she was way too good for the likes of him.
“What? You don’t see the family resemblance?” the café-owner-and-sometimes-waitress asked.
He glanced back at the seventy-something-year-old woman, noting that her purple eye shadow was an exact match to the geometric pattern on the scarf tying up her orangeish hair. Just Julia, on the other hand, didn’t wear a lick of makeup, and her only accessory had been an ugly beige cardigan covering up the hospital scrubs he hadn’t noticed earlier at the café.
“Well, she’s almost as pretty as you, but she kind of reminds me of one of those Lego people I had when I was a boy,” he said, then tried to offer the woman his most charming smile. His mouth and his opinions had often gotten him into trouble before, and he hoped Freckles didn’t object to his honesty.
But the sassy older lady just beamed a crooked grin, then sauntered over to join him by the window. “Yeah, she’s a little stiff and formal, but she’ll come around once I give her a good makeover.”
Actually, Kane would’ve used the words cold and inanimate to describe her. Just Julia was exactly like those academic decathlon snobs Kane had avoided in high school. The ones who were standoffish and thought less of him because he was some dumb jock. Not counting the high-handed way she’d talked down to him at the café, the woman had barely said three words to him, directing most of her comments to her aunt.
“What’s she doing to that poor phone?” he asked when he saw Julia shake the device before throwing it onto the dash of her car and backing out of the driveway.
Freckles sighed. “Poor girl’s not so good with technology. But don’t you dare tell her I said that. She’s used to being the best at whatever she sets her mind to.”
“I’ll bet that doesn’t help much when it comes to interpersonal relationships,” he said.
“You’re one to talk, Kane Chatterson,” Freckles responded, and he could see the disapproval in every wrinkle on her face. A wave of remorse lodged in his gut. As usual, he’d said the first thing that popped into his mind, not thinking that it might come out as an insult. He was always too quick, too impulsive. “We all have our flaws, son.”
Kane didn’t want to think about the reasons that he’d practically been hiding out in Sugar Falls for the past few months. So he wiggled his eyebrows and shot a grin at Freckles instead. “And what exactly are your flaws?”
“None of your beeswax, you little charmer.” She smacked his arm lightly, and the playful gesture helped loosen the knot in his gut. “And speaking of charm, don’t you get any ideas about putting those famous Chatterson moves on my Julia, you hear?”
“Ha!” Kane tried to laugh. “What famous moves?”
“She’s not real savvy when it comes to people, especially anything involving business and dating. She’s too trusting. She needs worldly people like us to look out for her.”
“I think you’re doing a fine job of looking out for her.” All on your own, he thought, but didn’t dare say out loud. In fact, Kane pitied the man who was stupid enough to get on Freckles’s bad side. And not just because they’d be banned from her restaurant and the best chicken-fried steak in Idaho.
“You keep that in mind. Julia’s nothing like those major-league groupies you got used to when you were playing baseball.”
He tried not to roll his eyes. How could he get anything from his notorious past out of his mind when everywhere he turned, it was getting brought up? Most people in town knew not to bring up his past career as a major-league pitcher or the scandal in Chicago if they wanted to engage Kane in more than five minutes of conversation. And usually five minutes was his max. Which meant this little chat with Freckles had gone on way too long.
“Don’t worry. I’ll give your niece a fair price, and you can rest assured that I have absolutely no intention of bringing the so-called Chatterson moves out of retirement.” He pulled the antique watch out of the pocket of his jeans and clicked the cover open and closed a few times. “Come on. I’ll give you a ride back to the café so you can make me a new burrito.”
“Fine, but you’re paying full price for a second meal.” Freckles sighed and hopped up into the Bronco. She was much sprier than most women her age—whatever age that was. “So, you’re saying my niece isn’t attractive or smart enough for you?”
“That’s not what I said at all, and you know it.” He slammed the door a little more forcefully than necessary, wanting to cut off any further discussion on this subject. People with half their eyesight could see that Just Julia was drop-dead gorgeous, even if she kept her classic beauty hidden underneath those ugly hospital clothes and an aloof exterior. He wasn’t about to admit to Freckles—or anyone—that every muscle in his body hardened the moment she’d reached out and shaken his hand. Kane hadn’t been remodeling homes for long, but he already had a few rules for himself.
Rule Number One. He worked alone.
Rule Number Two. He always packed an extra sandwich in case time got away from him and he found himself on the job after dinnertime, which happened nearly every day.
Rule Number Three. He wouldn’t work for a client who didn’t have the same vision he did for the outcome of the property. Some people might think this was bad business sense, but it wasn’t as though Kane was in this line of work for the money. He didn’t believe in working for free, but his past salary and careful investing pretty much negated the need for him ever to work again. He’d started this business because he loved to build things and see his ideas come to life, not because he loved being around people.
Today, he would add Rule Number Four. He wouldn’t date a client, no matter how attracted he was to her. That would be an easy enough rule to follow. Unlike Just Julia, Kane’s heart wasn’t in need of protection. It was retired, along with his pitching glove.
“So, what do you see for the house?” Kane asked her aunt as he climbed in and started up the classic car he’d been refurbishing in his spare time.
He listened to Freckles’s chatter as he steered the Bronco back into town, noting that all of her suggestions were the complete opposite of what her niece wanted. Which, actually, made following Rule Number Three rather easy. He and Just Julia definitely saw eye to eye about keeping the same features of the stately old house and just repairing and refinishing everything to bring it back to its original splendor.
Kane turned onto Snowflake Boulevard, the street that ran through downtown Sugar Falls, and pulled in front of the Cowgirl Up Café to let Freckles out. Neither his stomach nor his still-tense muscles were settled yet and he promised her he would stop in for lunch instead. He waved to a few of the locals, keeping his green cap pulled down low just in case there were any tourists out and about looking for an autograph or a sly selfie with the elusive “Legend” Chatterson.
God, he hated that nickname. And he’d grown to hate the celebrity status that came along with it.
What he did like was the slower pace of the small town, along with the refuge and the anonymity it had provided him. So far. The scandal of Brawlgate was finally dying down, and he didn’t want to challenge fate by coming out of hiding too soon.
Plus, Kane was finding that as much as he missed pitching, there was something to be said for living out of the spotlight. Despite fielding the occasional calls from his sports agent and former coaches, he was free to do whatever he wanted. Like tinker on his old cars and rebuild homes. And right now, there was a deteriorating Victorian on Pinecone Court calling his name.
As he drove back to the house, he reached under his seat and pulled out a notepad. So maybe he hadn’t been completely honest about not needing that. Kane parked the car and grabbed a tape measure from his tool bag in the backseat. Because he had issues focusing, Kane had a tendency to get so absorbed in a project that he would forget about his surroundings and tune out everything and everyone around him. And when that happened, he preferred not to have potential clients think he was off his rocker.
Since he hadn’t given the key back to Freckles yet, he could spend some more time in the house on his own, exploring it and making notes.
He just hoped that when he made those notes and calculated the costs, he didn’t spell anything wrong or add incorrectly on the formal estimate.
Concentrating on schoolwork had never been his strong suit, and he’d rather have a busload of newscasters from ESPN roll into Sugar Falls and reveal his hiding spot than have Just Julia look down her cute, smarty-pants nose at him.
* * *
By the time he pulled into a visitor parking spot at Shadowview Military Hospital the second Thursday in November, Kane was already five minutes late for his group session. Well, not his group session—one run by his brother-in-law, Drew.
He stopped by the Starbucks kiosk in the lobby and ordered a decaf Frappuccino because he hated sitting still in those introductory meetings with nothing to do, nothing to hold on to. Unable to wait, he stuck his tongue through the hole of the domed plastic lid to taste the whipped cream, then kept his head down as he walked through the large, plain lobby. Kane navigated his way down the fall-themed decorated corridors of the first floor until he found the psychology department, which was directly across from the physical rehab department.
Dr. Drew Gregson had explained that he wanted his patients with PTSD to understand their therapy was no different than someone learning how to walk again after losing a limb. Tonight he was meeting with a new group in a classroom-like setting—and Kane hated classrooms. They would eventually meet out on the track, in the weight room and on various courts and fields.
When Kane had been doing physical therapy after his shoulder surgery, his sister, Kylie, had talked him into coming to work out at the hospital. Drew had been looking for innovative ways to assist his PTSD patients in their recovery, and helped his wife convince Kane that exercising with them would be a great motivator for some of the men and women who used athletics as a physical outlet. Especially since most of the group’s sessions ended up in some challenge that usually provided one of the patients with bragging rights that they’d competed against Legend Chatterson.
Good thing his ego could take it. Being at Shadowview—seeing the world through the eyes of the wounded warriors and the staff who helped them—always put things into perspective for Kane. These people were dealing with legitimate life-or-death situations. Brawlgate, his former baseball career, being attracted to his new client...none of that seemed as important when he was faced with real obstacles to overcome.
Kane looked at the number he’d written on his hand to make sure he was going to the right meeting room. Which was why he didn’t see the shapely blonde exiting the gym facilities until she’d bumped into him.
“Sorry, darlin’,” he said before thinking about it. The flirtatious endearment sounded as out of practice as his pitching arm. His first instinct was to pull an orange pumpkin-shaped piece of construction paper off the nearby bulletin board and hide his face behind it, but then he recognized those round green eyes.
Whoa. His hand flew to his mouth to make sure he didn’t have any whipped cream stuck to his face. He hadn’t seen her since she’d signed off on his estimate and he’d started work on her old house a few days after they first met. Neither time had she looked so flushed, and sexy, and...hell, feminine, as she did now.
Not that he wasn’t well aware of how attractive she was. But Just Julia in her boxy hospital scrubs only served as a reminder that she was some smart doctor with a fancy education. In this outfit—he let his eyes travel down her form-fitting workout clothes—she looked like the kind of woman who would hang out in hotel bars and throw herself at the visiting professional baseball team.
“Mr. Chatterson?” she asked, and Kane tried not to look at the straps of her sports bra as he shifted the cold drink to his other hand, then back again.
“Sorry. I didn’t recognize you dressed like...” Dressed like what? One of Beyoncé’s backup dancers? Nothing he could say at this point would make him sound like less of an infatuated idiot. “Anyway, I wasn’t expecting to run into you here.”
“Sorry for running into you at all,” she said, then held up her smartphone. “I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going because I have this new fitness monitor on here, and I somehow programmed it wrong. It’s telling me that I’ve only burned thirty calories but that my heart rate is 543. Now, I’m trying to just delete the whole thing, because really, I know how to check my own pulse and multiply and... Sorry. You probably don’t want to hear about this.”
She tapped harder on the display. Kane, always a sucker for video games and electronics, eased the phone out of her hand. “Here, let me.”
She leaned in and watched over his shoulder as he made a few swipes and closed out the app. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that touch screens didn’t seem to be her forte. Or that standing this close to her still-damp skin made him think of a different type of physical exertion he wouldn’t mind engaging in with her.
He finished and handed the device back to her, cursing to himself for having such an inappropriate thought. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
“Well, I do work here.” It might’ve come off as defensive or stuck-up from any other woman, but Just Julia’s response seemed more like a schoolteacher trying to explain a new concept to a first grader.
And Kane Chatterson had always had a soft spot for his first-grade teacher, who’d been the only one who hadn’t treated him like a below-average student with problems sitting still in class.
“Are you working now?” He finally allowed himself to look down at the form-fitting sports tank that tapered down to her small waist. He brought his straw to his lips, needing something to relieve the sudden dryness in his mouth. He got the paper wrapper instead.
“I had back-to-back surgeries this morning and needed to loosen up and relieve some tension before I started on my post-op reports. Normally I do laps in the pool, but there was a water aerobics class going on, so I used the cardio equipment instead and accidentally set the program for the inverted pyramid. The incline level got stuck on high, which is why I tried to use my phone to calculate my heart rate. Wait. Why am I explaining all this to you?”
“Because I have the kind of face that makes people want to open up?” Why was he being so damn flirty? It was as if he couldn’t stop the asinine comments from flying out. But she’d caught him off guard, looking like that. Plus, she was much more down-to-earth and endearing when she rambled on about nothing.
“Your face is perfect. It’s your eyes that make people feel as if they’re strapped to a polygraph machine.” That was an interesting revelation. Did he make her nervous?
“So you like my face?” He reached up to stroke his trademark beard, then remembered he’d shaved it several months ago when he’d moved to Sugar Falls. Instead he touched a bristly jawline that felt like eighty-grit sandpaper.
“I’m not going to answer that.” But he could tell by the blush rising up from her neckline that she probably liked his appearance more than she wanted to admit. An alarm
bell went off inside his brain. And then, as if she’d heard the same warning, she straightened her back and crossed her arms, her haughty stance effectively putting him back in his place. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here for the...” He stopped. Kane couldn’t very well tell her he came as a guest to help boost troop morale. That might give away his celebrity status.
“I’m here for a meeting,” Kane finally said, then shifted his drink in his hands again and prayed she wouldn’t look at the big Psychology Department sign behind him.
She looked, and he saw her green eyes become round with realization.
“Therapy is nothing to be ashamed of,” she said, surprising him. No, he didn’t suppose it was, for a brain doctor like her. The only thing he was embarrassed of was the fact that he’d called this uptight, intelligent woman darlin’ and that she might connect the dots and figure out who he really was. Assuming she hadn’t already.
“Oh really?” He seized on her mistake. “Do you go?”
“As a matter of fact, Aunt Freckles suggested I start talking to a professional about my... Well, that’s not really relevant.”
Oh boy. The smart doctor had a secret. Besides the fact that she’d been hiding all her sexy curves under those blue scrubs and ugly cardigan sweaters. Now Kane was more than curious about what else the doctor was keeping under wraps.
“Actually...” She shifted back on her sneakers and stood up straighter. “I’ve been meaning to call you and see how the progress is going on the upstairs bedrooms.”
Bedrooms. Bedrooms. He tried not to think about the fact that this Lycra-clad woman had just said the word bedrooms to him. “Progress? Well, the flooring is all done in two of them and down most of the hallway. I should have the stairway finished by next Wednesday. I’m still waiting for you to get back to me on those tile samples so I can start the master bathroom. Why?”
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