Few people were out on the beach on this off-season morning but she did happen to catch sight of a guy running toward her from the opposite direction. He was too far away for her to really see clearly but she had the random impression of lean strength and fluid grace.
Ridiculous, she told herself. How could she know that, from two hundred yards away?
Still, she couldn’t help thinking how she needed a man in her life. It had been entirely too long.
She continued running, intent now only finishing so she could go into work.
Fiona trotted along beside her, in the same rhythm they had worked out through countless runs like this together. She was aware of the other runner coming closer. He had a dog, too, a small black one who also looked familiar.
They were only fifty feet apart when Fiona, for no apparent reason, suddenly veered in front of Melissa, then stopped stock-still.
With no time to change course or put on the brakes, Melissa toppled over the eighty-pound dog and went flying across the sand. She shoved her hands out to catch her fall instinctively. Her right arm hit sand and she only felt a jolt in her shoulder from the impact but the left one must have made contact with a rock buried beneath the sand, causing a wrenching pain to shoot up her arm.
This day just kept getting better and better.
She gasped and flopped over onto her back, cradling the injured wrist as a haze of pain clouded her vision.
Fiona nosed her side, as if in apology, and Melissa bit back her instinctive scold. It wasn’t the dog’s fault, she was the clumsy one, but what on earth had gotten into Fiona? They had run together dozens of times. The Irish setter was usually graceful, beautifully trained, and never cut across her path like that.
For about ten seconds, it was all she could do not to writhe around on the ground and howl. She was trying not to cry when she gradually became aware she wasn’t alone.
“Are you okay?” A deep male voice asked.
She was covered in sand, grabbing her wrist and whimpering like a baby seal that had lost its mama. Did she look okay?
“I’m fine,” she lied. “Just a little spill.”
She looked up—way, way up—and somehow wasn’t surprised to find the other runner she had spotted a few moments earlier.
Her instincts were right. He was great-looking. She had an impression of dark hair and concerned blue eyes that looked familiar. He wore running shorts and a form-fitting peformance shirt that molded to powerfully defined muscles.
She swallowed and managed to sit up. What kind of weird Karma was this? She had just wished for a man in her life and suddenly a gorgeous one seemed to pop up out of nowhere.
Surely it had to be a coincidence. Anyway, she might like the idea of a man in her life but she wasn’t at all prepared for the reality of it—especially not a dark-haired, blue-eyed runner who still somehow managed to smell delicious.
He also had a little dog on a leash, a small black Schnauzer who was sniffing Fiona like they were old friends.
“Can I give you a hand?”
“Um. Sure.”
Still cradling her injured wrist, she reached out with her right hand and he grasped it firmly and tugged her to her feet. For one odd moment, he could swear she smelled roses above the clean, crisp, masculine scent of him, but that made absolutely no sense.
Was she hallucinating? Maybe she had bonked her head in that gloriously graceful freefall.
“You hurt your wrist,” he observed. “Need me to take a look at it? I’m a doctor.”
What were the odds that she would fall and injure herself in front of a gorgeous tourist who also happened to be a doctor?
“Isn’t that convenient?” she muttered, wondering again at the weird little twist of fate.
He gave her an odd look, half curious and half concerned. Again, she had the strange feeling that she knew him somehow, but she had such a lousy mystery for faces and names.
“Melissa. Melissa Blake?”
She narrowed her gaze, more embarrassed at her own lousy memory than anything. He knew her so she obviously had met him before.
“Yes. Actually, it’s Melissa Fielding now.”
“Oh. Right. You married Cody Fielding, Cannon Beach’s celebrity.”
And divorced him, she wanted to add. Don’t forget that part.
“I’m sorry. You know me but I’m afraid I don’t remember your name.”
He shrugged. “No reason you should. I was a few years older and I’ve been gone a long time.”
She looked closer. There was something about the shape of his mouth. She had seen it recently on someone else... .
“Eli?”
“That’s right. Hi Melissa.”
She should have known! All the clues came together. The dog, whom she now recognized as Max, the smart little dog who belonged to Eli’s father. The fact that he said he was a doctor. Those blue eyes that she should have remembered.
How embarrassing!
In her defense, the last time she had seen Eli Sanderson, he had been eighteen and she had been fifteen. He had graduated from high school and was taking off across the country to college.
Who could blame her for not recognizing him? The Eli she remembered had been studious and serious. He had mostly kept to himself, more interested in leading the academic decathlon than coming to any sporting events or social functions.
She had been the opposite, always down for a party, as long as it distracted her from the sadness at home.
The Eli she remembered had been long and lanky, skinny even. This man, on the other hand, was anything but nerdy. He was buff, gorgeous, with lean, masculine features and the kind of shoulders that made a woman want to grab hold and not let go.
Wow. The military had really filled him out.
“I understand you work with my dad,” he said.
She worked for his father. Melissa was a nurse at Dr. Wendell Sanderson’s family medicine clinic. Now she realized why that mouth looked so familiar. His dad’s was shaped the same, but somehow it looked very different on Dr. Sanderson Junior.
“How’s your dad?” she asked, trying to divert her own attention from the pain. “I stopped by to see him yesterday after the surgery and was going to call the hospital to check on him today as soon as I finished my run.”
“He’s good. The orthopedic doctor is happy with the surgery outcome. Both knee replacements seem to have gone well.”
“Oh good. He won’t tolerate being down for long. I guess that’s why it made sense to do both at the same time.”
“You know him well.”
After six months of working for the kindly family medicine doctor, she had gained a solid insight into his personality. Wendell was sweet, patient, genuinely concerned—everything she remembered in her own father.
“Let’s take a look at this wrist,” Eli said now. Unlike his father, Wendell’s son could never be described as kindly or avuncular.
“I’m sure it’s fine.” She fought the urge to hide her hand behind her back, as if she were caught with a fistful of Oreos in front of an empty cookie jar.
“Again, I’m a doctor. Why don’t you let me be the judge of how fine it might be? I saw that nasty tumble and could hear the impact all the way across the sand. You might have broken something, in which case you’re going to want to have it looked at sooner, rather than later.”
She was strangely reluctant to hand over her wrist—or anything else—to the man. “I can have the radiologist at the clinic X-ray it when I go in to work in an hour.”
“Or you can let me take a look at it right now.”
She frowned at the implacable set of his jaw. He held his hand out and she sighed. “Ugh. You’re as stubborn as your father.”
“Thank you. I’ll take that as a compliment.”
He gave his outstretched hand a pointed l
ook and she finally sighed again and with a small amount of petulance, she placed her wrist in his hand.
His skin was much warmer than she might have expected on a lovely but still cool April morning. Seductively warm. His hands were long-fingered, masculine, much bigger than her own, and he wore a sleek Tag Heuer watch.
Her stomach felt hollow, her nerves tight, but she wasn’t sure if that was in reaction to the injury or from the unexpected delight of skin against skin.
He was a doctor taking a look at an injury, she reminded herself, not a sexy guy wanting to hold her hand.
Melissa aimed a glare at Fiona, who had started the whole thing. The dog had planted her haunches in the sand, tail wagging, and seemed to be watching the whole episode with an expression that appeared strangely like amusement.
“It doesn’t feel like anything is broken. You can move it, right?”
He held her hand while she wiggled her fingers then rotated her wrist. It hurt like the devil but she didn’t feel any structural impingement in movement.
“Yes. I told you it wasn’t broken. It’s already feeling better.”
“You can’t be completely sure without an X-ray but I’m all right waiting forty-eight hours or so to check it. Do you have a way to splint it? If you don’t, I’m sure my dad has something.”
“I’ve got a wrist brace I wear when I sleep to prevent carpal tunnel.”
“You’ll want to put that on and have it checked again in a few days. Meanwhile, ice and elevation are your best friends. At least ten minutes every two hours.”
As if she had time for that. “I’ll do my best. Thanks.”
A sudden thought occurred to her, one she was almost afraid to entertain. “How long will you be in town ?”
His father had hoped Eli would be able to cover for him at the clinic while he was out for the surgery, but last she knew, Eli’s military obligations had made it impossible for him to get leave so Wendell had arranged a temporary doctor through a service in Portland.
Given that Eli was here, she had a feeling all that was about to change—which meant Eli might be her boss for the foreseeable future.
“I’m not sure how long I can be here,” he answered now. “That depends on a few things still in play. I’ll be here for the next two weeks, anyway.”
“I see.”
She did. Entirely too clearly. This would obviously not be the last she would see of Eli Sanderson.
“I need to go. Thanks for your help,” she said quickly.
“I didn’t do anything except take a look at it. At least promise me you’ll raise it up and put some ice on it.”
Considering she was scheduled to work at his father’s clinic starting in just over an hour and still needed to shower, she wouldn’t have time for much self-pampering. “I’ll do my best. Thanks.”
“How far do you have to go? I can at least help you walk your dog home.”
“Fiona isn’t my dog, she belongs to my neighbor. We were just sort of exercising each other. And for the record, she’s usually very well-behaved. I don’t quite know what happened earlier, but we’ll be fine to make it home on our own. I don’t want to disturb your run more than I already have.”
“Are you sure?”
“We don’t have far to go. I live at Brambleberry House.”
His expression registered his surprise. “Wow. You’re practically next door to my dad’s place.”
They couldn’t avoid each other, even if they wanted to. She didn’t want to avoid him but considering she was now bedraggled and covered with sand, she was pretty sure he wouldn’t be in a hurry to see her again.
“Thanks again for your help. I’ll see you later.”
“Remember your RICE.”
Right. Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation. The first aid prescription for injuries like hers. “I’ll do my best. Thanks. See you later.”
This time as she headed for the house, Fiona trotted along beside her, docile and well-behaved.
Melissa’s wrist, on the other hand, complained vociferously on the way back to the house. She did her best to ignore it, focusing instead on the unsettling encounter with Dr. Sanderson’s only son.
Don’t miss A Soldier’s Return by RaeAnne Thayne available February 2019 from Harlequin Special Edition!
Copyright © 2018 by RaeAnne Thayne
ISBN-13: 9781488096464
Season of Wonder
Copyright © 2018 by RaeAnne Thayne
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