by Fiona Lowe
“Trina.” A familiar voice—one that had made her heart flutter for months and now made it cramp in anger and betrayal—came down the line. She could hear the sound of a code being called over a PA in the background.
“Brent.” She sighed, closing her eyes and automatically calculating the time zone change. She hated that her mind immediately pictured him coming out of surgery wearing his monogrammed scrubs and distinctive red clogs. She quickly opened her eyes and stared out across the plains toward the Rocky Mountains in the distance, desperately seeking calm. “I thought we’d agreed to no calls.”
This time he sighed. “I agreed you needed time and I’ve given it to you. You’ve made your point, Trina, I get it, but it doesn’t change the fact we still love each other. With some compromise and understanding on your part, we can still make this work.”
Still. His arrogance astounded her, although it shouldn’t be a surprise. She still whipped herself for having been oblivious to that particular character flaw. His tone said everything was her fault but she was being forgiven.
She pinched the bridge of her nose, welcoming the pain because she had no clue how to even go about explaining that no amount of trying was going to make them work. Ever. “Nothing’s changed, Brent.”
“I miss you.”
Her throat tightened as the quietly spoken words caressed her, reminding her of the wonderful times they’d shared. Her resolve wavered.
“Trina, I just want to reassure you that you can get me on this number anytime.”
This number. Her brain jolted her back to reality so fast she got whiplash. He’d gotten another phone. Another number just for her. Again. Her knees wobbled and she gripped the doorjamb to hold herself up. Wet paint squelched around her fingers. Shit. She pulled her hand away and found her voice. “Good-bye, Brent.”
She cut the call, hurled the phone onto the sofa as if it were radioactive and then ran fast and hard on the spot, letting out a scream that came from the center of her being. A deer grazing at the edge of the now weed-choked garden took off at a run. All the feelings she’d spent weeks letting go of surged back, buffeting her like the frigid and biting arctic winds that swooped in from Canada. Anger at Brent. Even more anger at herself and at her own stupidity. Anger period. She hated how it dug in, making her feel so powerless, desperately foolish and immensely sad all at the same time. She bit the inside of her cheek to try and stall the shakes that threatened to send her into the fetal position on the couch.
She never, ever wanted to feel like this again, which was why she’d come home in the first place, effectively putting two thousand miles between her and Brent. Closing the door to temptation and poor judgment.
Her old border collie, Boy, heaved himself off his rug and came over to her, licking her hand. He was deaf and half blind but he always knew when she was upset. She rubbed his ears and buried her face in his coat, thinking about how her life had changed so much. A few weeks ago she’d had a great job and a clear vision of her future firmly set in Philly. When it all came tumbling down, she’d bolted back to Bear Paw, telling herself it was only temporary. A breathing space. She’d even made some calls about doing some health care volunteering in Ecuador, because at least that was a plan of sorts and it reassured her that her time in Bear Paw would be short.
She hadn’t told her parents the real reason for her return, because she didn’t need to see or hear their disappointment that she’d failed, especially as she’d been heard to say more than once that she preferred living in the city. Instead, she’d skirted the truth and told them she was burned-out from her high-pressure unit manager job and she was taking a break to visit with them and work on the cottage. They’d immediately suggested she work at the Bear Paw hospital like she’d done when she’d graduated, but she was determined to avoid anything to do with doctors and hospitals. Instead, she’d gotten a part-time job at the diner and at Leroy’s. Although her parents had never been thrilled she’d left Bear Paw and they’d been the ones to urge her two years ago to buy the cottage, they’d silently accepted her decision, but she caught their troubled gazes on her from time to time. She hated that. Hated that her inability to make the right choices in her life had landed her back at home.
Giving Boy a thank you but I’m fine rub around the ears, she grabbed the roller with a jerk and quickly made short work of the rest of the walls. By the time she’d finished and was surveying her handiwork, she’d found a modicum of hard-earned calm. The new paint had gotten rid of the nicotine stains left by the stressed-out accountant who’d run from town the moment tax season was over. He’d been a lousy tenant despite Walt, her Realtor, promising her six months ago that he came with great references. After the mess he’d left behind, Katrina was convinced the previous landlord wrote the glowing report just to get rid of him.
The fact that her tenant had broken the lease was timely, because as much as she loved her family, she’d lived alone too long to go back to living in the ranch house. Coming home for short visits was one thing, but there was something about moving into her childhood room that turned back the clock. She ceased being Katrina McCade, independent career woman, and became Katrina—dutiful daughter, sibling mediator and general go-to person. It was all wrapped up with a distinct lack of privacy and it was wearing her out.
The moment the paint fumes had vaporized, she was moving in, and she’d repair the other damage that had been inflicted on the house. She’d even use some of her savings to renovate the kitchen. After that, she might go to Ecuador and be useful or she might head to California or . . . She had no clue. All she knew was that her plans were open-ended.
You’ve never done fluid. Her mind went straight to the very scheduled life she’d shared with Brent over the past eight months. She immediately hauled it back. She could do fluid. She could try and go with the flow with one exception. Lesson learned—no matter how much she enjoyed being in a relationship, she was not getting involved with another man anytime soon.
She pulled a screwdriver out of the tool belt around her waist and levered open the paint can containing the lavender paint for her bedroom. She suddenly smiled. At least Bear Paw didn’t have a surgeon with devastating charm, or for that matter a physician under sixty. She was totally safe on that front, and for that small mercy, she was truly grateful.
JOSH drove down a long gravel road seriously doubting the directions the hospital administrator had e-mailed him. Surely, the house that came with the job would be in the town and close by the hospital? Only he’d passed the hospital, two miles back, where he’d be reporting tomorrow morning at eight. Now Main Street, with its mixture of flat-fronted brick and clapboard shops, was well behind him, too. He appeared to be heading for Canada.
He hit a pothole and his front fender scraped the road. Shit. He slowed his speed and zigzagged his way around another four potholes before he pulled over to face the intensive stare of a jackrabbit, whose large ears mocked him. This was ludicrous. It was one thing for his student loans to have mortgaged his life, bringing him to a small town in the middle of nowhere, but surely the hospital wouldn’t have rented him a house way out here. He must have missed the turn back in town.
At least he now had one bar of service on his phone. He plugged the GPS coordinates of the house into the app. The melon-colored exclamation point magically appeared one-quarter mile away from his current blue location dot. He looked to his left. He needed to turn onto a driveway that had never seen blacktop or gravel.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he muttered as he threw the gear stick into first. No wonder the hospital administrator had said the house would be open and not to worry about a key. It was in the middle of damn-well-nowhere.
Five bone-shuddering minutes later, he pulled up outside a house or a cottage—he wasn’t sure which, and he wasn’t certain the builder had known, either. It was a mishmash of design and was neither attic cottage nor log cabin. One section was cladding and the other logs, and he thought he glimpsed some exposed h
ouse wrap between the two. The eaves extended over a door that was offset, in fact the whole side of the house he was facing looked as if it had been tacked on as an afterthought. A small satellite dish clung precariously to the roof, and Josh was surprised it hadn’t been blown away and taken the house with it.
The property screamed first homeowner’s dream, renovator’s delight or student housing. It had been a very long time since he’d been a student, and the gloss of living in a house that had seen better days had well and truly lost its shine. A few scraggly trees attempted to survive to create a much-needed windbreak, but most looked like they’d given up on the job. Weeds dotted the short path to the house, and a rusted-out truck was parked outside, possibly abandoned. Just fabulous.
The property was wrong on so many levels that it had to be a mistake. Reaching for his phone, he prepared to call the hospital administrator to complain when he remembered he’d gotten a message from him saying he was out of town today. Reluctantly, Josh pushed himself out of the car, locked it behind him and walked directly to the door. He knocked and waited but no one came, so with a firm grip, he turned the handle. Surprise jolted him when it opened smoothly and without a squeak.
He had to duck his head as he walked through the small entrance with its coat hooks and a boot box, before stepping into a pine-clad kitchen. Circa 1970, it came complete with faded lime green counters and a breakfast nook. It was a far cry from the granite countertop kitchen with all its modern stainless steel appliances back in his Chicago apartment.
Her Chicago apartment.
Not wanting thoughts of Ashley to creep into his mind, he decided that even though there was no way in hell he was going to live here, he’d explore the house and list all the reasons why the place was unsuitable. Paint fumes hit him the moment he crossed into the living room, and moving carefully, so as not to get paint on his chinos, he soon found himself facing a small, steep staircase.
Years of experience running between floors of the many different hospitals he’d worked in had him taking the stairs two at a time. His head suddenly slammed into the sloped ceiling. “Jesus.”
His vision swam and he rubbed his scalp, already feeling a lump the size of a golf ball rising under his fingers. He mentally added another reason to his mounting list. Not only was the house in the boonies, it was built for dwarfs. Moving decidedly more slowly, he took the rest of the stairs one at a time with his head bent low. He didn’t risk straightening up until he was well and truly on the landing.
Raising his head, he realized there was no landing—he was standing in a room. A dormer bedroom. He blinked in surprise. An old dog lay sleeping on a rug, and a short woman stood on a ladder with her back to him and with white earbuds in her ears. She was carefully painting the area where lavender walls met the white ceiling. Her heavy leather work boots gripped the second-top step and thick, bright red socks peeked out over the top. A paint can perched precariously on a board near her knees.
He almost called out but he didn’t want to startle her and risk her falling off the ladder and breaking something. Plus, his gaze seemed fixed on her bare legs. They weren’t model-long, but the calves were muscular and sculpted as if they worked out often and were strong for the effort. And the skin was tan. A beautiful, golden tan from sunshine, not the orange tint from a bottle like he’d noticed on some patients after the long Illinois winters. Just as his mind and gaze slid upward, hoping to glimpse what he imagined would be the sweet curve of her ass, denim cutoffs rudely broke the view.
Damn. Still, the shorts hinted that the naked view might well be a good one. A bright blue paisley blouse that didn’t remotely match the shorts—and reminded him of his grandmother—flowed over the waistband at complete odds with the wide black band of a tool belt. His brain jolted, trying to merge the juxtaposing images of modern meeting old-fashioned. His gaze had just reached short, glossy black hair when she turned and saw him.
Before he could raise his hands to show her that he came in peace, her enormous green eyes—the color of spring—dilated in shock.
The dog barked.
She moved abruptly, her actions jerky, and her knee caught the edge of the board, sending the paint can flying.
Two seconds later, Josh was wearing lavender paint.
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