by Abby Brooks
“I’m young still. There’s plenty of time for the work to corrupt me.”
We said our goodbyes and I headed to the clinic, bopping in my seat to Collin West’s “Cruel Princess.”
“Time is a cruel mistress!” I bellowed with the significantly more talented singer. “An ice princess! Keeping me away from you! Cruel seconds slash my soul! Deeply, darkly, down I roll! Until, sweet girl, your love! Proves! True!” I punctuated the end of the hook with a solid fist to the air, earning me a strange look from the driver next to me.
I shrugged and smiled. He did the same, adding a head nod of solidarity as he turned up his own music and thrashed around until the light turned green. Encouraged, I howled and danced away the rest of the drive. A few songs later, I pulled into The Community Health Clinic. Thanks to the support of grants and individual donors—and medical doctors donating their time—anyone could get the quality care they deserved, regardless of insurance or income. And, because of government funding, that care extended to dental cleanings, obstetrics, x-rays, and other such goodies. We were a one-stop shop for anything and everything.
The clinic was little more than a squat rectangle with a gravel-littered parking lot plonked onto the side of the road. Flowers hunkered in pots beside the entrance. I pressed through the door where Dorothy, the receptionist, greeted me from behind her desk.
Her smile was so big, her eyes crinkled closed. “What’s up, Doc?”
“Hey, Dorothy. Where’s Toto?”
“Awww, shucks. I left him at home today.” We’d shared a similar joke a hundred times, but she still laughed like we deserved a Netflix special. Dorothy quirked her head, her straight, black hair grazing her shoulders. “Did you know Toto was actually a girl? And she suffered from anxiety?” She shrugged as if to say, “who knew?”
“I had no idea.” I dropped a hand on her desk before heading back to stow my things. “Hey, Tony.” I waved to an elderly gentleman with the jowls of a bullfrog stuffed into a chair in the waiting room. “Sandra. Mateo. Arianna.”
“Hey there, Doc Monroe,” Tony ribbited while the others lifted a hand in return. “Good to see your pretty face.”
“We’ll see how you feel after we go over those test results.” As the self-proclaimed King of Junk Food, Tony had eaten himself into a pre-diabetic state. I had a list of dietary suggestions that would remove the crown from his head and the gleam from his eyes.
The evening flew by, as all work done with passion should. The end of my shift came and went, but walk-ins still filled the chairs in the waiting room. I’d go home after they did.
As I said goodbye to a gentle young woman with a toothy grin, Dorothy cornered me in the hallway. She gave a friendly wave as my patient turned the corner, then whipped to me with worried eyes. “There’s this little kid out there,” she whispered. “Shane Samuels. He’s cut his finger, but his mom isn’t here.”
I leaned against the wall. “How’d he get here?”
“He walked.”
“He walked?”
“He said his mom is gone. No idea what that means. He’s got his finger wrapped in a tissue, but there’s a lot of blood, Doc.” Concern merged Dorothy’s eyebrows.
“Do we have a consent form on file?”
She shook her head, her fingers worrying the hem of her scrubs. “He’s not in our records at all.”
I peeked into the waiting room and my heart cracked in half. Shane couldn’t have been more than six. His skinny legs tick-tocked under his chair, one of the laces grungy, untied, and dragging across the floor. A tuft of dark hair covered his eyes and ears, curling at his collar. He clutched his finger like his life depended on it, gnawing his lip as blood peeked out the bottom of the tissue.
“What do we do? Do we have to turn him away?” Dorothy stuck both thumbs into her teeth and chewed on the nails.
Treating a minor without a parent or guardian present was bad news, but asking a bleeding child to leave the clinic without help would put me on par with the devil himself. “I’ll see him. Just…misplace his intake info?”
Dorothy nodded, patted my arm, and lumbered away.
As I stepped into the waiting room, my heart rattled in my chest like Nan ramming her shoulder against the door. “Shane?”
The little guy looked up.
“Come on, buddy. Let’s take a look.” An alphabetized list of all the reasons this was a bad idea ran through my mind.
He squeaked off the chair and quietly followed me into a room at the end of the hall. The less people saw us together, the better. Just in case someone without a soul decided to make trouble. I cleaned the wound, then went ahead and cleaned the rest of his hand and under his fingernails, too. “Where’s your mom?” I asked as I grabbed my stitch kit.
“She’s out.”
I nodded like that made sense. “How’d you cut yourself?”
“I was tryna open a bag of hot dogs. The knife slipped.” His brown eyes met mine and my heart stopped calling me an idiot for helping him. If I was breaking a law, then that law was dumb. Not me.
Shane flinched as I started stitching, but watched with interest. “Did you ever need stitches?”
“Once.”
“Were you openin’ hot dogs?”
“I fell off the slide and cracked my head on the way down.” I traced a faint line on my temple. “Got me pretty good.”
“Betcha you were glad to find someone to help, too.” Shane’s smile was like the hummingbird that often flitted past my bedroom window. There. And then gone.
My heart sputtered and died on the spot.
“You better believe it.” Fighting the urge to ruffle his hair—or at least brush it out of his face—I put the finishing touches on his finger, considered giving him something for the pain, but drew the line there. It was one thing to stitch up a cut without consent, but without allergy information, medication was dangerous. I did, however, do my best to explain how to care for the injury in the simplest terms possible. Something told me he’d be the one doing the work.
Shane hopped off the table and stared at his shoes. “I don’t have money. But I brought this.” He dug in his pocket and pulled out a plastic ring from one of those vending machines outside grocery stores.
Caught between telling him to keep the bauble and honoring his desire to give instead of take, I crouched to meet his eyes. “I have good news for you. This clinic is made for people who don’t have any money. You can keep your ring, buddy.”
“You swear you’re not just being nice?”
“Pinky promise.” I held out the digit in question. “Tell you what,” I continued, as he wrapped his little finger around mine, “you have any problems, any at all, you know where to find me, right? Maybe next time, Mom will bring you so I can meet her, too. But, even if she can’t, you remember how to get here if you need help, right?”
“Yep.” He gave a decisive nod and another brief smile.
And that was that.
I walked Shane to the door and stood beside Dorothy as he disappeared down the road. “He comes back without his mom and I’m not here? Text me. We won’t be turning Shane Samuels away.”
Chapter Seven
Joe
Maxine’s guesthouse was haunted by the ghost of George Monroe. There was a sense of time standing still in his old space. As if the man might walk through the door any minute, assume I was trespassing, and threaten to pepper spray me. The boxes weren’t organized. At all. From the look of it, Maxine went out of her way to spend as little time in the place as possible.
I got that.
His pictures still hung on the walls. Some of him with his arm around his wife, both of them grinning with the abandon reserved for youth, idiots, and fools in love. A few with him in military uniform that hung beside a display box of medals. I saw the man holding babies and fixing cars, welcoming his grandchildren into the world and constructing the very building in which I stood. There were a few of George with Kennedy as a kid. Back then she’d been buck
-toothed and freckled. Her hair had been more red than copper, but completely unmistakable as she grinned at her grandpa like he was the patron saint of awesome.
The Monroe life story unfolded before me and it was a good one.
I didn’t fault Maxine for wanting to stay in the house they’d shared.
I moved in on Friday evening, took some of his pictures down, and hung a few of my own. The ones I put on the wall were happy enough, mostly of me and my brother as we traveled the world. The rest were crammed into a box and told a very different story. One that started out dark and took a wild turn somewhere in the middle. The jury was out on how it would end, but I wasn’t crossing my fingers for a happily ever after.
I slid the box of pictures under the bed, changed the bedsheets, and claimed a closet, carefully folding George’s clothes before setting them with the rest of his stuff.
And that was the extent of my nesting.
What I wanted to do was organize the place so I could stop feeling like an intruder.
What I needed to do was repair the porch steps so they stopped squealing every time someone came to the door.
Saturday morning, I stumbled out of bed and knocked over a box of knickknacks on my way to the bathroom, jamming my big toe into the corner of the wall. As I hopped around like a deranged kangaroo, spewing curse words and dodging trinkets, any semblance of a good mood died on the spot. Its ghost would spend the day with George’s while I wrestled wood and paint in the scorching July heat.
Though, as always, the work itself had something else to say about that.
Cut by cut and nail by nail, my bad mood slipped away. I lost myself in the scent of fresh pine. The rhythm of the hammer. The stroke of a pencil marking angles. Sweat slipped down my spine as my saw whirred to life. As the pile of old wood grew and the new stairs took shape, I felt the presence of George standing behind me, his arms crossed the way I’d seen in his pictures, his face lifted with approval.
Or, maybe I was having a heat stroke.
I pulled off my T-shirt and used it to swipe my forehead before tucking the end into my back pocket. A whistle sounded from across the yard. I glanced up to find Delores twiddling her fingers in a girly hello.
I lifted a hand. “Hey there, Miss McIntire.”
“Hey yourself, Hot Stuff.” With a sultry wink and the swish of velour, she ambled into her backyard.
Laughing to myself, I surveyed the work. Just a few nails away from a job well done on step number two. I grabbed my hammer.
One nail sank into wood.
Then another.
Then…
“Wow! This looks—”
The hammer smacked into my favorite finger, twisting the nail out of place. Clamping my jaw down kept me from launching a stream of expletives at whoever stood behind me, but didn’t stop the guttural groan growling up my throat.
First my face. Then my toe. Now my finger.
I was starting to believe the Monroe house was cursed.
“Oh my God. I am so sorry.” Fucking Penny Dreadful crouched beside me, genuine concern flashing in her eyes, and I officially knew the house was cursed. “Here. Let me see.” She reached for my finger, which I had clamped in my uninjured hand.
I jerked away and stood, pacing to outrun the pain. “Thanks, but the swelling just went down from our last interaction.”
Kennedy sucked in her lips. “I feel terrible. I really do.” Ignoring the wisdom of not approaching a wounded animal, she put a gentle hand on my arm.
A spark shot through me at her touch.
Assuming it was the feeling of evil entering my body, I yanked out of reach. “I don’t need a mother.”
“You might need a doctor.”
“Don’t need one of those, either. Charge me two hundred dollars to put on a bandage.” Releasing the grip on my finger, I assessed the damage as Kennedy murmured, “The man continues to have a point.”
“What did you just say?” Thrilled to have a target for my anger, I hit her with a death stare. “After causing me serious bodily harm for the second time, are you actually making fun of me?”
She huffed a sigh and mashed her lips into a grim line. “Never mind. Ignore me. Just a momentary lapse of judgement. Do you want me to take a look at your finger or not?”
“Not.”
“Suit yourself.” Kennedy stalked up the stairs, cursing as the third one shrieked under her weight. “Missed a spot,” she hissed, and I swore by the set of her jaw that she doubled down on her plan to talk Maxine into selling the house.
“I haven’t gotten to that one yet.”
“Whatever.” She shut the door behind her—it closed gloriously, might I add—and I lifted my middle finger, flinching as the nail throbbed in protest.
More determined than ever, I took my frustration out on that squeaky stair.
Wrenching away the rotten wood felt fucking magnificent.
Tossing it onto the pile proved every point I’d ever made.
Cutting the new step and fitting it into place was a triumph.
With every bang of the hammer, I imagined Kennedy flinching as she tried to talk over the racket. If I had any doubt I was an asshole—I didn’t, but let’s just say I did—the smile on my face settled things once and for all.
When I finished, I marched up and down the steps several times, bouncing on the third one, enjoying the solid silence, then slathered them with paint. Those damn stairs wouldn’t spend any time exposed to the elements. They’d squeak and squeal over my dead body.
An hour later, I wiped my brow and admired my work. The pristine white paint stood out like a beacon against the faded handrails and broken balustrade. I had supplies in my truck and the fire to keep going, but the front door whispered open and Kennedy and Maxine tumbled out in a cloud of giggles and conversation.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I held up my hands as the duo approached the still-wet steps.
Maxine glanced down and her face lit up. “Are my stairs quiet now, too?” She made a move to test the squeaker but I raced forward.
“They are, and the paint is still very much wet.” Relief sagged my shoulders as she gripped the handrail and stopped herself from stepping down. The thought of a footprint ruining my first day’s work after taking a hammer to the finger just about did me in. “I’m really sorry, but you might want to exit and enter through the back for the rest of the day.”
Maxine quirked her head. “I guess this means I forgot to show you the back door.”
I furrowed my brow. What delight waited for me back there? “I guess you did.”
She tossed Kennedy a grin over her shoulder. “Looks like we’re making a jump for it.”
Maxine was in great shape for her age. She took Judo. Stayed active. And yet, judging from the pictures I saw in the guesthouse, she was somewhere between sixty-five and seventy. Jumping off her porch seemed risky. “Let me help.” Bracing myself on the rail, I extended my hands as if reaching for a child. Fearlessly, Maxine jumped into my arms and I placed her safely on the ground.
Her grin grew even bigger as she waggled her eyebrows at Kennedy, who scoffed.
For Maxine’s benefit, I reached for Kennedy and I really wanted to hate the idea of touching her. I even conjured images of her sneering at me as she punched me in the face. The haughty lift of her eyebrow as she stepped off the creaky stair just hours ago. My finger throbbed in protest, but the more I stared at those lips, that hair, those eyes crackling with intensity as they glared down at me, the more something else throbbed. In my pants.
To cover my reaction, I shifted my weight and smiled as sweetly as possible and wiggled my fingers in a “Gimme” gesture. “Your turn, sunshine.”
Kennedy rolled her eyes, then heaved herself off the porch. She landed with a grunt, and the two of them sauntered away.
I doubled down on the asshole factor by admiring the curve of Penny Dreadful’s butt.
Now I had two reasons to love watching her leave.
Her personali
ty and the cut of her jeans.
Chapter Eight
Kennedy
I felt Joe’s eyes on me as I headed to my car with Nan. They burned a hole in my back like two pinpricks of hellfire skating down my spine. With that in mind, I let my hips swivel more than I normally would. A little sexy. A little sassy. A whole lot out of his league. Take that, Joe Channing.
Do not turn around, Kennedy. Do not give him the pleasure of seeing he got to you. You’re strong. You know what you like and it’s not him.
Despite my inner warrior mantra of Joe-lessness, I turned around anyway.
Our gazes locked and while he forced a frown, the glint to his eye didn’t look upset in the least. In fact, he seemed delighted as he lifted one eyebrow, turned his back on me, and strutted away. Those jeans hugging those thighs and butt cheeks had my body rebelling. Such a shame to waste a good looking exterior like that on a man with a rotten core.
Nan chattered away as we drove out of her neighborhood. She talked about Carl and Delores. Judo and house repairs. Purposefully driving my attention away from Joe, I nodded and mmm-hmmm’d my way through the conversation. She was content, which warmed my heart, but I couldn’t understand why she was so resistant to putting her house on the market.
Moving into an apartment couldn’t erase Grandpa’s memories. It just wasn’t possible. They didn’t live in the house. They lived in her heart. Her soul. Her mind. As an added bonus, selling the place might even give her closure. She’d be forced to go through his things and come to terms with his passing in a way I wasn’t sure she had, even after twenty years.
Plus, if she decided to sell, Joe would be forced out of our lives.
Hot bod or not, that seemed like a very good thing indeed.
Or it should have. For some reason, the thought landed with less gusto than I expected.
With that in mind, I made a decision on the fly and detoured from our lunch destination. Ambushing my nan might have been a dick move, but if something happened to her, all alone in that house, I’d never forgive myself if I hadn’t done everything in my power to help her see my point of view.