by Jane Toombs
That was that, David told himself as he sauntered back toward Aunt Gert’s. A brief encounter and a goodbye. The end. Well, it was fun while it lasted.
Before he’d gotten half a block away, he saw Hal Hathaway coming toward him. “Just sent you a customer,” he told Hal.
Hal stopped beside him. “I certainly can use all you send me. I hope this one is pretty.”
David nodded. No argument there.
“Is your aunt back yet?” Hal asked.
“Not until the day after tomorrow.”
“The reason is, I’ve been wanting to ask her if she wants that vacant lot on the street directly in back of you. I’ve decided to sell and she gets first refusal.”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her.”
Hal went on to list all the reasons why Gert should buy the lot, then remembered something in the hotel basement he wanted to show David.
When David finally was able to get away, he shook his head. He liked the old man, but he was sure long-winded. By the time he got back to his aunt’s, the blue SUV in back of the nursery truck was gone. The time he’d spent with Hal had given Amy long enough to walk to Gert’s and drive the SUV back to the hotel parking lot. He’d missed a last goodbye.
Or would it have been one? If Amy was a patient of Gert’s he might run into her sometime. Best to stay away from his aunt’s patients, though. He didn’t need anyone else’s problems while he was still struggling with his own.
He’d have to consider the fact he usually ate breakfast at the Cottonwood. Giving it a miss for the next two mornings would be a good idea. When he went to bed that night, he kept the thought in mind and wound up dreaming he was in a Manhattan theater watching a follies-type stage show, especially the chorus girl on the left end of the row. He was seated close to her, so close he could see her eyes were green, though her eyes weren’t what he was paying the most attention to….
While shaving early the next morning, he told himself he damn well wasn’t going to change his routine on the off chance he might run into Amy. She’d probably sleep late and no place in town served a better breakfast.
Amy woke at her usual hour and groaned. Here she was more or less on vacation for today and could have slept in. As always, once awake, hunger stalked her. She could never understand those who made do with just orange juice or coffee for breakfast, she needed a meal. David had been right when he said the hotel served decent food—dinner had been delicious. She looked forward to breakfast.
David. Why was he still on her mind? At least she hadn’t dreamed about him. Not that she could recall, anyway. Being a psychologist, she did try to track her dreams, but, oddly enough, couldn’t remember any this morning. Perhaps she’d suppressed them and she actually had dreamed of David. There’s an unsettling thought.
Actually she probably would see him again, however briefly, because the yard work Dr. Severin was having done had looked quite extensive, but it’d be no more than a “Hi” sort of encounter. The last thing she needed at the moment was a man in her life. Never mind what Dr. Smits had told her about her denial state where men were concerned. He was another example of a controlling man himself. Sometimes she wondered how his wife could stand him.
On the off chance that Dr. Severin might come home earlier than expected, Amy put on a dark green skirt with a lighter green shirt, ran a brush through her short curly hair and left her room.
As she entered the dining room, she noticed the waitress seating a man—David. Annoyed because her heart gave a lurch, she wished she could walk past him without a word, but that would be confirming Smits’ diagnosis of denial. Okay, she’d acknowledge David’s presence by a courteous hello. Why was she making such a big deal of it, anyway?
The waitress came to seat her and Amy was almost at his table when he saw her. He stood up, unsmiling, and gestured toward an empty chair.
“I guess you’re with David,” the waitress said, plopping the menu she held onto his table. “I’m Vera and I’ll be right back.”
Telling herself it’d be awkward to back out, Amy let David seat her.
“You didn’t tell me you ate breakfast here,” she said.
“I expected you to sleep late,” he told her.
“Why?”
He shrugged.
“Do I impress you as someone who doesn’t work for a living?” she asked.
He shrugged again.
Realizing she sounded defensive, which would never do, Amy took a deep breath and decided to start over. “Good morning, David.”
His lips curved slightly, not quite a smile. “’Morning, Amy.”
“I see the sun is out.”
“Usually is in May hereabouts.”
“You don’t make small talk easy.”
“I don’t?” His gaze met hers.
The deep blue of his eyes fascinated her. What color were they? Darker than cobalt or azure, but lighter than navy. They dominated his face, making it difficult for her to look away. When she forced herself to, she found herself examining the curve of his upper lip. He had a rather full mouth, as she did. She found his attractive. What would it be like to feel those lips touching hers?
Wrong place to go. “Once I wake up I’m hungry,” she blurted, throwing the words at him as a barrier.
“Likewise, I’m sure. Coffee, then food, fast. You?” When she nodded, he lifted the coffee server and poured some into her cup.
“Thanks.” She took a swallow. As she remembered from last night, it was excellent.
“Black’s the only way to drink it.” He actually sounded approving.
To discourage any more approval, remembering his comment about beer the day before, she said, “I don’t like beer in any way, shape or form.”
He raised an eyebrow. “What’s beer got to do with coffee?”
“Nothing much, you ask me,” Vera, the waitress, told him, having arrived unobserved. “You guys ready to order?”
When she’d taken their order and left, David said, “Vera said it all. Beer and coffee, apples and oranges.”
He really did have a habit of picking every comment apart, didn’t he? Two could play that game. “So you decided you weren’t likely to run into me at breakfast since I was obviously a late sleeper.”
“Can’t be right all the time. Figured you didn’t have anything to get up for this morning. Didn’t tie in hunger.”
Something flashed into his eyes as he said the last word, but it was gone before she could be sure what she’d seen. A different kind of hunger? Damn chemistry, anyway—she could feel the tension between them like a palpable chain. He certainly gave off irresistible pheromones. Or was it only females who did that? Looking at him across the table seemed to be turning her brain to mush.
David tried to focus on his coffee, but he couldn’t keep his gaze away from her. Today she wore a skirt and a polo shirt, green like those deep-sea eyes of hers. A bad mistake to come here for breakfast. He should have stayed away. Far away.
No woman had tempted him for more than a second or two since his divorce, but he couldn’t make himself ignore Amy. While any man would give her a second look, this was more than reacting to a pretty face atop a well-built body. He seemed to be drawn to her in a way that scared the hell out of him.
Vera’s arrival with their food was a welcome break. He wondered if it was for Amy, too, since she concentrated on her food and didn’t talk. If she didn’t want to sit with him, why hadn’t she declined his offer to share a table? For that matter, why had he made it? Courtesy? He knew better.
Yeah, Severin, and you know better than to get into a tangle you’ll regret.
He tried to come up with something Cal might say, something that might turn her completely off him, and found all he could think of was that Cal was actually an all-right guy. What he’d been doing was parodying Cal’s speech patterns and making a mockery of the guy’s lifestyle. He scowled.
“Is something wrong with your food?” Amy asked.
He glanced
up at her. “Why?”
“You’ve been glaring down at your plate forever.”
“The food’s fine.”
“Oh, then it must be the company you’re annoyed with.”
“I asked for the company, didn’t I?”
She raised her eyebrows. “That doesn’t mean you can’t have regrets.”
“If I’m annoyed at anyone, it’s myself.” He picked up his cup, downed the last drop of coffee and reached for the carafe. “Care for a refill?”
“Just warm it, thanks.” She waited until he poured more coffee into her cup, then said, “Anger’s destructive.”
“So I’ve been told.” By his aunt, more than once in the past year. He poured himself another cupful and took a swallow. Been told that and other cautions he hadn’t wanted to hear. Ethically, Gert wasn’t allowed to psychoanalyze him because he was a relative. Which didn’t prevent her from dropping loaded hints. Or making a yardman out of him, like Amy believed he was. The last thought made him smile.
“That’s better,” she said.
“You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, too,” he deadpanned.
“Always supposing you’re looking to catch flies.” Her words challenged him.
“I’m not looking to catch anything.” He spoke flatly, his gaze crossing hers.
He watched her face turn expressionless, but her tone was light when she said, “And here I felt sure you were a fisherman.”
“Every yardman doesn’t fish.”
He could see he’d managed to offend her. “I was not trying to categorize you,” she snapped.
He glanced at the egg congealing on his plate and knew he couldn’t finish his breakfast. Just as well, because this seemed a good time to split. He flipped a couple of bucks on the table for a tip, rose, nodded to her and walked to the cashier to pay his bill. Not hers, though it might annoy her more if he did. But he figured he’d done enough damage. He was safe. Amy wasn’t likely to give him the time of day again, even if she became a regular patient of his aunt’s. Just the way he wanted it.
Then why didn’t he feel relieved?
Amy watched David leave the hotel, then pushed her plate to one side, her appetite gone. What a boor. Though she hadn’t wanted to explore what might have been between them any more than he did, he didn’t need to be so abrupt. With time maybe they could have managed to become friends.
Friends? Ha. Who was she trying to snow? Hadn’t she learned not to fool herself? If anything had ever been going to happen between her and David, it wouldn’t be friendship. She’d never gone in for brief, hot affairs—like any relationship with him would have been—so it was just as well their acquaintance had ended on a sour note.
She should be glad. She was glad. With luck he’d finish the yard work at Dr. Severin’s quickly and then be out of her life completely. He was as forgettable as any other man.
And if he knew what was good for him, he’d better keep out of her dreams, too.
Chapter Two
Cal was unloading a new batch of greenery from the nursery truck when David reached Aunt Gert’s.
“Wanted to be sure you got the rest of the stuff you need early,” Cal said.
“Thanks.” David pitched in to help, thinking again of how he’d used Cal. What he’d done wouldn’t harm Cal in any way, but he was unpleasantly reminded of how Murdock had patronized him last year. In no way, shape or form did he want to be like that bastard.
“The boss says you ever want a job, just ask,” Cal told him when they finished. “He drove by yesterday while you was putting in them shrubs. Said you’re a damn good worker.”
“Tell him I appreciate the compliment.” Which was the truth. Not that he intended to do landscaping for a living.
David watched Cal pull away in the truck. In a way, he envied the man. Cal liked his job and seemed to be satisfied with his life, which was a hell of a lot more than could be said about David Severin. He lived comfortably enough, having been lucky enough to put the money his grandfather had left him in investments that proved both sound and profitable. Still, he was getting restless doing nothing. Aunt Gert had urged him to take both the Nevada bar exams, which he’d passed, but he had no heart for law after what had happened in New Mexico. The truth was, he didn’t know what he wanted to do with the rest of his life.
A few plantings later, his gloomy mood began to lift. Gert was right about hard work in the open air easing depression. He peeled off his T-shirt, hung it on the porch railing and picked up a spirea bush. He’d just finished digging the hole for it when he saw Gert’s car pulling into the drive. She waved at him on her way back to the garage. He dropped the bush into the hole, quickly covered the roots and set aside the spade.
As he walked toward the garage, the overhead door went down and Gert emerged from the side door, carrying a small overnight case.
“You’re home early,” he told her. “Let me take that inside for you.”
She handed him the case. “A delegation from the Walker Valley reservation called on Grandfather, wanting advice. What they really wanted, I soon saw, was for him to go back there with them, so I gracefully bowed out.”
David knew she meant her friend, a Paiute medicine man who insisted everyone call him Grandfather.
She stopped in the utility room and told him to leave the case by the washer. “He’d had one of his dreams, by the way,” she said. “Something about two red-tailed hawks. You were one of them, apparently.”
Since Grandfather’s dreams often had some bearing on reality, David waited for her to go on. Instead, she switched subjects. “Now I’m going to take a shower, change and come sit on the front porch and watch you work.”
“The hawks?”
“I’m still thinking about that dream. When I have it figured out I’ll let you know.” She left him in the utility room.
David retraced his steps out the back door and around to the front again. He picked up the spade and set to work once more. He’d gotten more than half the plantings in when his aunt appeared on the porch with a pitcher of limeade and two glasses.
“Join me?” she invited.
After using the hose to wash some of the dirt off his bare skin, he donned his T-shirt and took a chair beside his aunt, who was sitting on the glider, moving gently back and forth. He reached for the drink she’d poured for him and swallowed half the contents of the tall glass.
“This is hand-squeezed limeade,” his aunt said. “You’re supposed to sip and savor the result of my efforts.”
“Too thirsty.” The words reminded him of his first sight of Amy. “By the way, someone came by yesterday to see you—I think she might have been a new patient. I told her you’d be back tomorrow.”
“All my regulars knew I was out of town,” Gert said.
David leaned back in the chair, stretching out his legs. Felt good to take a break. Like yesterday when he’d had lunch with Amy at Tiny Tim’s. He closed his eyes and there she was in her blue suit, the way he’d seen her that day…
“Penny for your thoughts,” Gert said. “They must be pleasant, since you’re smiling.”
Without opening his eyes he told a half-truth. “Just relaxed.”
Still thinking about yesterday, he was falling into a half doze when Gert exclaimed, “Why, look who’s here. You’ve come early.”
David’s eyes popped open and for a moment he thought he was having a vision straight out of his daydream. Amy was climbing the front steps to the porch. He stumbled to his feet, unable to believe his eyes.
“I know I wasn’t supposed to be here until tomorrow, Dr. Severin,” Amy said. “I’m sorry if I’ve inconvenienced you.” She didn’t look at him.
“Not a bit. I’m just glad I came home a day early,” Gert said. “Amy, this is my nephew, David Severin. David, Amy Simon, whom I told you would be coming to work with me.”
It all came back to him then. Dr. Simon, Gert had said, was finishing up her probationary year toward getting her license, in which
she had to be under the supervision of a licensed psychologist or a board-certified psychiatrist. He’d remembered Dr. Simon was female, but he’d forgotten her first name. He’d assumed she’d be older. And definitely not a sexy blonde.
“Hello, Mr. Severin,” Amy said, those green eyes of hers as cold as the limeade he’d downed.
He swallowed and inclined his head. “Dr. Simon.”
“Heavens, such formality,” his aunt said, giving him an odd look. “I’m Gert, she’s Amy and you’re David.”
“Yes,” he muttered, “she’s Amy, all right.”
“And you’re David.” Amy’s voice was as frosty as her eyes.
Gert rose from the glider to look at one, then the other of them. “Such antipathy can only mean, I do believe, that you’ve met before. This does explain at least part of Grandfather’s dream about the male hawk and the female hawk.”
Recovering somewhat from the shock of discovering David was Dr. Severin’s nephew, Amy was confused anew by his aunt’s words. Gert had to be in her seventies and she had a grandfather? Good grief, how old would he be?
“I’m forgetting my manners,” Gert said to her. “As I mentioned when we had that brief meeting in Reno last month, you’ll stay with me until you find a place to live. Do come in and I’ll show you to your room.”
“Well, um, I’m at the Cottonwood Hotel at the moment.” The last place Amy wanted to stay was anywhere David might be living.
Apparently sensing this, Gert said, “David has his own apartment to the west of town so you don’t need to worry about putting him out. It’ll be handier for you here than at the hotel until you find a place of your own.”
Which was true. Especially if David planned to eat breakfast at the Cottonwood every morning. “It’s very kind of you, Dr.—”
“Didn’t I just say the name is Gert?”
Amy managed a smile, beginning to feel she was going to get along with her new employer. “Thanks, Gert.”