Just Down the Road

by Jodi Thomas

They moved as silently as possible across the room and around machines until they reached the small sink.

  While Reagan tenderly patted around the cut with a paper towel, Noah walked over and put his arm around Jamie. “How you doing, kid?” Noah whispered.

  Jamie shrugged. “He’s not going to die, is he?”

  The man in the bed closed his fingers around the boy’s hand. “I’m not going to die, son. I swear, so there’s no need to worry or ask again.”

  Noah couldn’t help but grin at the boy’s smile. A Christmas morning smile in the middle of this was a welcome sight.

  “Noah,” Tinch added, his eyes still closed, “any chance you could get someone over to my place to feed and water the horses? I may be able to tomorrow, but I could use the help today.” His voice was slowing. “Maybe leave some food out for the kittens and dogs. Look out for one that may be injured.”

  “I’ll see that it’s done.” Noah knew it took a lot for a man like Tinch to ask for help. He also knew that somewhere down the line Tinch would return the favor. “Just got word that the sheriff’s department has two of the trespassers who beat you in custody. She’s taking them in now and will be over as soon as they’re locked up.”

  Tinch seemed to relax, and a smile touched his swollen lip. “One more,” he whispered before seeming to doze off.

  Jamie moved up on the side of the bed, waiting for Tinch to say something else. “One more what?” the boy asked.

  “One more man to catch,” Noah finished the sentence.

  “How about we let him sleep, Jamie,” Noah whispered as he lifted the boy over to a recliner near the windows. “We’ll be here when he wakes up, and you can talk to him more then.” He covered Jamie with a blanket and added, “Why don’t you sleep for a while. When the sheriff gets here, I’ll go find us a couple of breakfast burritos; till then I’ll watch over you, and I promise if Tinch wakes I’ll give you a shake.”

  Jamie didn’t argue. He was asleep before Noah finished tucking him in.

  For a moment, Noah stood watching the sunrise over the roofs of Harmony. He hadn’t been to bed in twenty-four hours, but he didn’t care. He was home and needed. It felt good.

  When he lived on the road from one rodeo to another, time passed in events and not days. After months, the memory of how it felt to be part of a town, a family, seemed to fade. An old man in a bar told him once that rodeo wasn’t a way of life, it was a way of dying one piece at a time. He’d said that in the end a man can end up broken and alone if he’s not careful.

  Noah watched a very tall nurse walk through the door and head straight for Reagan. She had that all-business look about her. One brief glance at him made it plain that she didn’t want to talk to him. If he wasn’t the patient, he was near invisible to her.

  When he noticed that Big followed her in, he asked, “You go get that one?”

  “She’s a friend of mine. She’s on duty downstairs, but I talked her into taking a break to help Reagan.” Big shrugged as he watched the nurse. “Or, at least she would be my friend if it weren’t for you.”

  “Me? I don’t even know the lady.” Noah frowned at his almost-friend. “By the way, what is that you got on? You look like a side of beef wrapped in felt.”

  “It’s a jogging suit.” Big spread his arms. “I think it was supposed to be a birthday gift for Ester’s brother, but she gave it to me an hour ago, so of course I had to wear it. Looks great, don’t you think?”

  Noah grinned. “Since when have you ever jogged?” Big probably burned a few thousand calories a day working. He wasn’t the type to need more exercise.

  “I’m thinking of taking it up.” Big did his best to whisper, but he wasn’t a man who practiced the habit. “Ever since a certain lady”—he pointed toward the tall nurse with his head—“gave this suit to me. She says it’s just right for me to wear when we’re cuddling.”

  Noah slapped himself on the forehead trying to get the picture of Big cuddling with anyone out of his head. “You and cuddling fit together about like a runway model and spurs.”

  He wore such a silly grin that Noah fought the urge to slap Big, but he had the feeling if he did, the construction worker would stomp all over him even if he was wearing a jogging suit made for cuddling.

  The tall nurse ended their pointless conversation when she turned from the sink and held up Reagan’s hand. “It’s not really a cut, more like a scrape. She didn’t need stitches, just some antiseptic cream and a Band-Aid.” The nurse smiled at Reagan and added, “I think there are some at the nurses’ station. I’ll go pick up a few and be right back.”

  When she walked past Big, Noah didn’t miss the way she brushed his shoulder like she couldn’t keep her hands off his jogging suit. He doubted the gift would have had the same effect on her if the nurse had given it to her brother. For some odd reason, the woman seemed to think Big was as cute as a toy bulldozer.

  Reagan held up her hand as she joined them by the window. “All better,” she said, then narrowed her eyes. “Were you two fighting?”

  Noah and Big both tried to look innocent.

  Reagan shook her head at them and went back to the sink to try to get some of the mud off her clothes.

  Noah leaned closer to Big. “What do you mean, if it weren’t for me that nurse would be your friend?”

  “Nothing. Forget it.”

  “No, you started this. If you won’t tell me, I’ll go ask that pretty nurse. She looks like a sweetheart.” Noah would have added something about even if she was a couple of inches taller than him and outweighed him by fifty pounds, but he figured if he said anything about her size he’d be lying next to Tinch in the hospital. Big had always been a little touchy about size. Noah had the feeling Big didn’t think of himself as huge; rather, he saw himself as normal size, with the rest of the world too small.

  “All right. I might as well tell you.” Big groaned as if being forced to open up. “Ester will anyway when she gets back. She says it’s something I need to deal with.”

  “Ester who?” Noah felt like he’d missed something.

  Big looked angry. “Try to keep up, cowboy. I know you’re brain dead from riding bulls, but keep it together enough to follow a conversation. Ester is the nurse who just helped Reagan. We kind of met and hit it off right away.”

  “What does that have to do with me?”

  “You and Reagan are interfering with us. She’s the first girl I’ve seen in a long time who might be interested in me and I can tell you from the moment I saw her, I was interested in getting to know her, but you and Rea haven’t made it easy.”

  “What?” Noah needed sleep. He was lost again. He thought of mentioning that he needed air, but he wouldn’t put it past Big to toss him out the third-story window.

  Big tried to get him up to speed. “When we met, I had to leave our first dance because you and Reagan were fighting in the bar. Then I had to hang around to keep you both out of trouble. Now, this morning, when Ester took me home for breakfast, we’d just started getting nice and cuddly when you call again.”

  “But this time …”

  Big shook his head. “Every time with you two is an emergency. There’s no getting around it. If I’m ever going to have a full date anytime in this life, you two have got to break up. Swear never to see each other again and maybe, just maybe, I’ll have a night off from babysitting you both.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding if you think you can break Rea and me up just so you can have a date. That’s about the dumbest thing you ever said, and to my way of thinking, dumb things have been dribbling out of your mouth since birth.”

  “Why not break up? It shouldn’t be all that hard. You guys have been together since high school, and near as I can tell you’ve spent more time not talking to each other than talking.”

  “I’m not buying any of this, Big.”

  “Then buy this: If you don’t leave Reagan alone, I swear the next time you see me you’ll wish you’d run headlong into a bull. I hate
to have to do this, but I got to have a life and it doesn’t seem to be a possibility with you two as friends.”

  “I can’t deal with your insanity right now.” Noah glanced at the boy. “I’ve already got a full plate.”

  “I understand,” Big said. “But when this is over, I want you to say good-bye to Reagan once and for all.”

  Noah didn’t have time to say more. Ester was back with Band-Aids.

  After a few minutes, Reagan talked Big into going down to the cafeteria and getting them some breakfast.

  Big didn’t argue. He didn’t bother to ask anyone what they wanted either. He just followed Ester out, frowning at Noah like he felt sorry for him.

  “What was that all about?” Reagan whispered.

  “Big thinks we should break up.”

  Reagan shrugged. “First of all, I didn’t know we were a couple; I thought we were just friends. And second, why would he care?”

  “He thinks we’re ruining his love life, and by the way, we are a couple.”

  She backed into the space behind the door. “We are? Nice of you to mention it to me.”

  Noah followed. “Of course we are, Rea. We always have been, even though you won’t admit it. Besides, no one kisses hello and good-bye like you do. I should have been having you take me to the airport every time I flew.”

  He leaned in and touched his mouth to hers. When she didn’t object, he pressed her gently against the wall and kissed her the way he’d been wanting to since their first kiss at the airport hours ago.

  She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him back. That wild, buckle-your-knees kind of kiss she’d given him far too few times.

  He slid his hand along her body, loving the feel of her against him. She was small, but every inch of her was a woman and he loved pressing her to him. It was like their bodies had a memory of how to mold perfectly together. No one felt the same as Reagan in his arms. No one ever would.

  A moment later, she pushed away and stepped around him. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I can’t do this here.”

  Noah tried to calm his breathing. He’d been playing this game with her for so long he wondered how she could still manage to surprise him. Anyone else would have walked away, he thought. But every time she pulled him close and then stepped away, he felt the kick of her gone in his gut like a fresh wound over old scars.

  When he didn’t say a word, she finally looked back at him.

  He didn’t turn away. For once he wanted her to see how she affected him, how she hurt him. She wasn’t some woman in a bar who just walked up to him and kissed him. She was Reagan. His best friend. His only true love.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “I’m standing on a ledge, Rea, halfway between heaven and hell, and right now I don’t much care if I fall or if I fly. If you want me, then be with me. If you don’t, then step away. I’ll get over it in a few hundred years. We can be friends or we can be lovers, but I can’t deal with being halfway in between.”

  She nodded as if she understood, but Noah had no idea which direction she was thinking about taking. If she said she only wanted to be friends, he’d take the blow and probably wait around for the next time she kissed him full out with no holds barred.

  It occurred to him that maybe everyone was right. Maybe he had been kicked in the head one too many times by the bulls he rode. If she ever stopped fighting her feelings and him, he prayed he’d be man enough for her to love.

  Chapter 46

  DR. ADDISON SPENCER CLOSED THE DOOR TO HER OFFICE and leaned against it for strength.

  Her father had already taken the seat behind her desk as if he belonged there. Though this was only a temporary office stocked with leftover furniture, he couldn’t have looked more regal if he’d been in his huge oak-lined office in California.

  He’d come sixteen hundred miles to have his say, and she knew he wouldn’t leave until he did.

  “I still don’t understand why you signed on for this little town. Did you really think you could do something miraculous here, or were you just running away … as usual?” He cleared his throat, preparing to begin the lecture about how she’d never measured up. “It took me a while to locate you this time, but….”

  Addison held up one hand and took a long breath. She didn’t intend to let him win this time. She might not know what direction she was headed in life, but it was her life.

  They’d had this conversation over the phone a dozen times.

  “Ten years ago, I left home because I thought I was in love when I was still more kid than woman. It was a mistake, not usual behavior. This time, I guess, I ran away, if you want to call it that, because I wasn’t in love with my work or the man you seem to think is perfect for me. Part of me was afraid you’d be disappointed in me. Glen Davidson or your vision of what I should do for the rest of my life was all your idea, not mine. He’s doing great research, Dad, but it’s not what I want to do. I love working with people, not test tubes. I delivered a baby last night for a woman I’d treated seven months ago when she was hurt in a fall. I’ve been with her, fighting for that baby to be born.”

  She could tell her father wasn’t listening, but she needed to say the words. “These people matter to me. I’m almost like family, there when they lose someone and there for the birthing. I know you don’t see it, but the work I’m doing here is important. I’m not afraid of what you’ll think anymore. For once I don’t want to disappoint me.”

  Before he could correct her, she added, “People, Dad, not patients or subjects, but real people. That’s what I want to work with.” Until this moment she hadn’t realized just how much she loved it. Delivering babies in the middle of the night, working overtime after a bar fight, sitting with the family when there was nothing else to do but wait for death. She loved it all.

  “Glen won’t wait forever.” Her father hadn’t heard a word she’d said. “If you ask me, he’s been a patient man already.”

  “He doesn’t want me. He wants an assistant.” She could feel herself fading again, disappearing into the woodwork.

  “I’ve already talked with your supervisors in Dallas. You’re just one of a rotation line of doctors they move out to these small towns that need help keeping staff. They can find someone to take your place immediately.”

  Addison closed her eyes, remembering another time when she’d stood before her father, broken and alone. He hadn’t listened then and he wasn’t listening now. Before, she’d been willing to do whatever he suggested, whatever he demanded, because after one shattered marriage she’d lost all judgment.

  But she wasn’t nineteen this time. She wanted more than her father or Glen in L.A. could offer. She still wanted what she’d been searching for when she’d run away after high school graduation. Addison wanted love.

  When she opened her eyes, all she saw was a cold man at her desk. Her entire life had never been about her. It had always been about what he wanted, what he expected, what he demanded.

  She’d been wrong once. She’d probably be wrong again, but at least she wouldn’t be invisible.

  “I’m not going back with you.” The image of Tinch standing alone on the porch before dawn flashed in her mind. “I have to do what is right for me.”

  “You’re making a mistake. You’re throwing away your future. If you’d just listen to me …”

  “No, Dad, I’m finding it,” she countered. “I don’t want what you and Glen are offering. I want something else, something more.” For the first time she realized her words were true. She wasn’t hiding away settling for less; she was standing, demanding more.

  “I’m not coming back to save you again, Addison.”

  “I won’t be asking you to.” At that moment she felt light enough to fly. “Good-bye, Dad.”

  She turned, opened the door, and stepped into the rest of her life.

  Chapter 47

  TYLER WRIGHT USED THE BACK ENTRANCE OF THE HOSPITAL. He might not be taking out a body this time, but he figured th
e way he looked someone might mistake him for a corpse. Few in town had ever seen him unshaven, much less with his trousers pulled over his pajamas. He’d been delighted when Stella McNabb showed up. He was also thankful the funeral home didn’t have any services pending. They all needed time to simply enjoy the new life coming into their world.

  Tyler was thinking about how he liked the name Autumn had picked. Brandy Lee Smith. It sounded like a country/western singer. She might be only hours old, but he could tell she was a bright little thing just by the look in her eyes.

  A short, wiry man bumped into Tyler as he stepped onto the back parking lot. He seemed in a great hurry, not bothering to apologize as he hurried on. Tyler didn’t recognize him. Over the years he might not have known names, but he was familiar with all the staff. This man in his wrinkled black suit and slicked-back hair didn’t work at the hospital, Tyler was sure about that.

  This guy didn’t even look like he belonged in town, much less at a hospital.

  Tyler’s tired body pulled him toward his car, but reason stopped him. If his Kate thought something was amiss, she’d investigate, and so would he.

  As he followed the man inside, keeping his distance, he noticed the odd way he moved, as if testing each step for a trap below the tile floor. He turned the corner and entered the stairwell, and after a moment, Tyler followed.

  Tyler climbed the stairs as quietly as he could. He was almost to the second-floor door when he heard the man pull a door open on the third floor. Then not a sound.

  Out of breath, Tyler reached the third-floor door and pulled the door open to an empty hallway. The stranger was gone. He could be in any room. The third floor stretched out in both directions from where he stood.

  For a moment, Tyler thought of taking the elevator down and going to his car. The idea of stopping by for a dozen doughnuts on the way home sounded grand. He figured, with luck, he could have half of them eaten by the time he reached his own kitchen. Autumn or Kate wouldn’t be there to stop him, so he’d finish the rest off with milk.