by Lila Ashe
Grace set her mug of tea on the porch rail and looked out onto Iris Street. From here, if she stood on tiptoe, she could look over Felicia Dow’s low gabled roof and catch just a glimpse of Darling Bay. On foggy summer mornings like this, sound was captured and carried farther than normal. The noise of the seals barking down by the fishing pier lifted her spirits. She hugged her old blue sweater tightly around her and felt thankful, again, that she’d chosen the right town. She’d been raised inland, in a hot, dusty, farming community. Her father had grown strawberries, and while they’d hired pickers every season, she and her sister Samantha had been on the permanent staff, even being kept out of class during the height of the season. It had been worth it, to her father, to have the extra four hands working, even when he had to deal with the phone calls from school. “They’re my kids, and if I say they’re sick, they’re sick, and you have no right to come and check on them.” He would bang the phone down and point. “Pick as fast as you can, and we’ll get McD’s tonight.” To Grace and Samantha, to whom McDonald’s was the height of elegance and refinement, this was payment enough.
Their father had stayed in the field until he died of skin cancer while Grace was in college. Their mother had died of a rare lung disease two years later. They were all sure it came from inhaling years of crop dust, but who could they appeal to? No one. Grace had tried so hard, to fix them both, to get them out, to get them healed, and nothing had worked.
Escaping to the cool, foggy beach town of Darling Bay was the best thing she could have done. In the ten years she’d been here, Samantha had been with her, on and off, a year here and a year there. Grace cherished the time with her sister, trying not to grasp her too tightly, like she knew she sometimes did. She had to let her sister breathe. Knowing that and letting her sister have her own life, though, were two different things.
A motorcycle took the corner at Taylor and First Street a little too fast. Speed demons always liked coming down First for its tight curve along the marina, but Grace hated it when they raced past her practice. The noise was one thing—the roar and gas fumes that came out of their tailpipes—but her real concern was safety. Someday she’d have to run out there to scoop one up off the roadway. She’d be the first person on scene, and yes, while she was CPR trained, she sure as heck never wanted to have to use it. Lifesaving was for people like Tox.
Big, strong, grumpy Tox. The man wouldn’t leave her thoughts.
The motorcycle paused, slowed, and then stopped in front. Great. Would he leave it parked there? In her best customer parking spot?
The man got off the bike in one smooth motion, making it look like it weighed nothing beneath him.
Then, as if she’d conjured him merely by thinking his name, the man took off his helmet.
Tox.
He looked criminally sexy. In his black leather jacket, he looked more like he was about to knock over a liquor store with a sawed-off shotgun rather than stride confidently up the three steps to her porch.
One thing she knew—he was a robber, because she couldn’t quite get back the breath she kept losing when he was around.
“Hey,” he said. The helmet hung lightly from a finger against his thigh. His wide, jean-clad thigh.
“You actually like riding that thing?”
“It’s nice to see you, too.”
Grace realized she hadn’t responded to his opening salvo very appropriately, but she didn’t care that much. “You know the risks of riding a motorcycle?”
“Not off the top of my head, no.” He took off his black leather jacket and laid it down on her porch swing. As if he owned the place.
“You’re thirty-five times more likely to die in a crash than a person in a car, did you know that? And forty-eight percent of motorcycle crashes are a direct result of speeding.”
“I did know that, actually. I don’t speed unless I’m alone on the highway.” He dragged his hand through his dark blond hair. Shaggy, and with just the right amount of curl to it, it looked amazing when he stopped. Grace knew that if she’d ever put a helmet on, she’d end up with worse hair than she did when she wore a baseball cap. But this guy looked tousled. She bet he always looked that good. Boy, that was annoying.
So she continued, “A little less than half of all motorcycle deaths involve only the motorcyclist.”
Tox almost smiled—she could tell he did. “How do you know all this?”
Years of worrying about Samantha and her stupid motorcycle which she finally sold for drug money before she got clean the last time.
“I know stuff.”
“How are you feeling?”
Oh. Tox was checking up on her. “You probably want your inhaler back. Hang on, it’s inside.”
He raised a hand. “I’m fine. I have more of them. Keep it.”
“You didn’t have to come here,” she said. It came out more gracelessly than she would have liked. “I mean, thank you so much. The way you helped me on Friday—twice—was great. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. But I’m happy to take care of myself, and I know what to do for difficulty breathing.”
“You’re going to stick needles in yourself?” Tox looked horrified.
“With that,” she said, “and the right herbs, I’ll be right as rain in no time.”
“Oh. Well,” he said, and ran his hand through his hair again.
Grace wished he would stop doing that. It was distracting.
“Anyway,” she said pointedly. “Thanks.”
“It was nice to see your sister.”
Ah, that was the game, then. It had been a long time since Grace had needed to fend off guys at the front door, but she remembered it well. “It’s good to have her back in town.”
“Must be.”
Grace waited, cupping her tea in her hands. He would follow up with a request for Sam’s phone number or at the very least a query about her relationship status.
“Coffee’s a good thing to have,” he said, gesturing. Was he uncomfortable? Why was he shifting from one foot to the other like that?
“I drink tea.”
“Huh. Why?”
“Lower cortisol response.” That was the truth of it, but actually, she still had a cup of coffee or two in the mornings. She hadn’t been able to cut herself off yet.
“Okay …”
Grace finally took pity on him. “Can I help you with something? Do you need to check the air conditioner? Because a friend of mine is in HVAC and he came in on Saturday. I got a whole new unit. It’s quieter than the last unit, but I can show you if you need me to.”
“I was actually…”
She waited again. Whatever he wanted to say, it was something he didn’t really like. She could read it in the way he held his eyes, tight and careful, and the way his mouth was folded, as if he’d tasted something sour. And heck. Even with his mouth pressed that way, he still had a sexy mouth. Fine, strong lips.
Grace jerked herself back to the present. She nodded in what she hoped was an encouraging way. “So …”
“Can you stick some of those needles in me?”
“Pardon?” She must not have heard him right.
He looked even more pained. “I got a gift certificate. I’m supposed to …”
“Oh! Lexie! I saw that come through online.”
Tox nodded. “One time she made me do a sweat lodge with her. All I got was a headache from the smoke. She gets me into the most stupid crap.”
“Wow,” said Grace.
His eyes widening, he hurried to say, “No, I don’t mean … That’s not what …”
Grace laughed. “It’s not the first time I’ve dealt with a skeptic. And I’m sure it won’t be the last. Come on in. I’ve got some paperwork I need you to fill out.”
CHAPTER NINE
Tox sat in a comfortable and probably ergonomically correct red foam chair in the outer office. It was a pretty room, done up in red and yellow and lots of green. There must have been twenty plants in the small front room alone, their vi
nes twisting around each other. Small purple blooms warred with clusters of white. How did someone get flowers to grow inside like that?
Grace hadn’t been kidding about the paperwork. Tox was used to forms—used to dealing with and tracking the paperwork he encountered daily at work—but this was something else. Did she really need to know his sleep pattern (bad) or how many times a week he had sugar (at least seven, if he had ice cream every day, and sometimes he actually had it twice, and was he supposed to admit that too)? She wanted to know about any history of depression (he called it the blues, himself, and given long enough, it usually dissipated like drift smoke). Relationship troubles? That was one place he was good, he knew that. No relationship trouble at all. If you kept yourself happily single, you didn’t have any worries in that area.
And he was not going to tell her about his bathroom habits. No way.
But the other stuff surprised him. He didn’t lie about smoking, because he didn’t have to. He’d always hated the habit, and being in his line of work had made him hate it more. How many thousands of breathing calls had he been on over the years? Lung cancer was ugly, uglier than most other ways to die, and he’d seen a lot of it. Nothing fun about drowning to death.
Drinking? Sure, he had a few on the weekends. Lately he might have been having one too many on occasion, and it bothered him to admit it, starkly like that, in blue pen on white paper. It was actually a good reminder for him. It didn’t take very many to be too many. He resolved, sitting there, that he was going to let his bottle of Scotch maybe pick up a few cobwebs. He didn’t need it, and he didn’t ever want to.
Grace had given him a cup of tea in a green and white ceramic mug when he’d sat down with the questionnaire, and he took a sip absently.
Okay, normally tea wasn’t his thing, not even when they gave it to you free at Su’s Chinese on Fourth. This was different, though. It wasn’t sweet, but there was something to it … vanilla? Something sweet. Kind of the same scent he’d smelled on her last week, actually.
“You ready?” she said, reentering the small room.
He nodded. “Hey, you sure you have time for me today? Because I can come back another time.”
“This way,” she said, leading him into the next room. He hadn’t even given the room a second glance when he was there for the air conditioner fire on Friday, but now he took his time looking around. In another lifetime, this room was probably the parlor of the old Victorian. It was narrow, but it ran long. Green plants in brightly painted pots were everywhere, giving the room a lush, verdant feel. The walls were covered with red velvet wallpaper, the design ornate. While it should have made the room seem heavy and dark, the many windows, most of them standing open, made the room feel airy. The place where her fire extinguisher should have hung was still empty.
He pointed. “You need to buy another one.”
“I have it in my car.”
“No good to you out there.” Tox turned slowly. He counted ten simple recliners, nothing like the plush, heavy ones they had at work.
“You can fill all these chairs with patients? At the same time?”
“Sometimes,” she said easily. “I have a couple of private rooms for people who don’t want to share. Would you prefer that?”
And have her think he was shy? No way.
“That’s okay. I know I didn’t have an appointment and all. I guess I should have called.” He jerked his head in the direction of the way they’d come. “You want me to come back another day?”
She gestured to the empty recliners. “Shoes off, please.”
“Oh.” He’d been halfway hoping he’d get out of it. Maybe she’d even tell Lexie he’d come by, and then she’d get off his back.
“I actually have a pretty full afternoon. It’s good that you’ve come now. A patient’s first appointment is the most important, and it’s the one that takes the longest.”
What was she planning to do to him?
“As you saw,” Grace said while pointing him to the recliner nearest the stereo, “this is my main treatment room.”
Was he supposed to just sit down? She wasn’t going to take his blood pressure or his weight or anything? He tugged at the laces on his work boots, all he really ever wore anymore. At least he didn’t have feet like Chief Barger—that smell could kill a possum half a mile away.
“Right there’s perfect.” She pulled out a rolling stool from under a counter and placed it next to his recliner. “Go ahead and tilt it back,” she said, now standing at the shelves on the north wall. “I want you to make yourself as comfortable as possible.”
“Because this is going to hurt, huh?”
She took a folded white towel and a peach-colored blanket from a shelf. “Are you scared of needles?”
“No.” Tox felt a thin sheen of sweat break at his hairline.
“Really?” She was close to him again, that same sweet-tea vanilla smell in his nose. Man, he liked that smell. He inhaled and felt something inside of himself ease.
“I don’t think I am,” said Tox.
“But you’re nervous.”
He shrugged and sent the recliner backward. Yeah, there was the same sweet spot as the ones at the station. Get the feet adjusted right, and the head in that comfortable zone, and you could just bliss out, no matter what dumb crap your partner was watching on the big screen TV. “Not nervous. Maybe just a little … concerned.”
“Here,” she said, leaning over him, draping the blanket over his legs. “Adjust this so that you’re warm enough.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Too warm?”
“I’m sweating here.”
She removed the blanket and draped it over the next chair. “Are you sure you’re not scared of needles?”
“They’re sterilized, right?”
Grace laughed, a light, pretty sound. “Of course. Each one has never been used.” She glanced down at her paperwork. “Why do they call you Tox?”
The change of subject startled him. “What?”
“Is it short for Toxic?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“I’m a hazardous materials guy.” He paused. “Kind of the hazmat guy. If something bad blows up or off-gasses, they want me around to analyze it.”
She looked down at his paperwork. “What’s your real name?”
“Nuh-uh. If you need that for insurance or the gift certificate or something, I’ll just pay cash.”
“No, no, I’m just curious, that’s all.”
Tox cleared his throat. “How many needles are you planning on using?”
“Not that many. A hundred and thirty or so?”
He jerked upright. “No way. No freakin’ way. Screw Lexie and her bright ideas.”
She laughed again and put a cool hand on his forearm. “I’m teasing you. We’ll probably do between ten and twenty points today. But at any time, if you feel uncomfortable, or if you want to leave, you can.”
He tried to relax back into the chair, but it was hard. The fight-or-flight reflex left the webs between his fingers damp. He hoped he wasn’t sweating through his shirt. “What’s the towel for?”
Sitting on the stool and rolling closer to him, holding his paperwork, she said, “I would tell you it’s to mop up your blood, but I think I’m at the edge of too much teasing with you.”
Tox pushed out his chest. “Impossible.”
“Really?” She stuck the tip of her pen lightly into his forearm, and Tox jumped so high he felt his neck protest in response. “Ow,” he said. “Man.”
“I’m sorry,” Grace said, leaning forward again. “I don’t usually do that.”
“Scare people into tweaking their necks?”
“Tease patients.”
Tox had to admit, he liked it in theory. He liked being teased, especially by a woman so hot he could barely look away from her. Yeah, his neck hurt, but the trade-off was that he got to stare at those big coffee-colored eyes of hers.
Not a bad trad
e, really.
CHAPTER TEN
Grace felt like an idiot. A terribly young idiot, who wouldn’t have passed her California licensing exam if she’d done anything like that. Teasing a patient until she hurt him! What had she been thinking?
She wasn’t. That was the point. Around Tox, she acted like a twelve-year-old girl, too young to understand why she wanted to poke a boy in the shoulder as she ran past him in dodge ball.
Taking a deep breath, she grounded herself for a moment, placing her feet flat on the floor.
Grace was a helper. She would help Tox. It was what he needed. The fact that he made her hormones swirl like he’d stuck a spoon in them and stirred, that wasn’t his fault. She was the pro here.
“Okay. This is to prop yourself on if you want it. It looks like your neck hurts.” Rolling the towel, she kept her gaze firmly on the area his fingers were absentmindedly rubbing. She carefully didn’t meet his eyes, worried that if she did, she’d want to tickle him next, or worse. “It might help to have this behind it.”
He leaned forward so that she could tuck the towel behind his head.
“I’m going to check your pulses now.”
As she reached forward to hold his wrist, she felt Tox watching her closely.
She straightened her back and concentrated on feeling the blood and energy move under her fingertips. He felt strong. Vital.
“Okay.” She rolled so that she was at his feet. “I’m going to roll up the bottoms of your jeans now.” With some people, Grace was careful to talk them through every step of the process. He was one of those people who needed it, and she was having a hard time forgiving herself for being so unaware that she might have scared him.
It was just hard to believe that a man who looked like he did could be scared of anything.
“Now I’ll take the pulses at your feet.”
Tox snorted. Grace looked up sharply.
“Sorry,” he said. “Sorry. Keep going.”