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“Hmph.” Had her aunt just snorted? “I don’t know if I mentioned this yet, but the town of Sugar Falls puts on a big to-do at the end of the year to raise money for the hospital. Since you’re one of the new surgeons and an official resident of Sugar Falls, the committee is going to expect you to be there as a guest of honor. With a plus-one, if you know what I’m saying?”
Guest of honor? A plus-one? Julia’s stomach twisted and her forehead grew damp, despite the fact that the early November sun still hadn’t peeked out of the clouds. She was pretty sure her aunt was suggesting she’d need to find a date, which was much easier said than done. Besides, Julia never wanted to show her face in the town of Sugar Falls again.
“Oh, look,” Freckles continued. “Here comes Kane now. Smile and try not to look so dang serious.”
Julia’s insides felt tighter than a newly strung cello as she turned around to await the contractor who would be doing the remodeling work on her new home—if his estimate was reasonable. Yet before she could formulate her plan to refrain from shoveling out piles of her inheritance to someone in order to avoid the hassle of negotiating, she recognized the familiar gray flannel shirt, and her heart dropped.
Oh no. Please, no. This can’t be happening to me.
The man hadn’t seemed quite as tall when he’d been sitting in that booth back at the Cowgirl Up Café, but his broad shoulders and chest looked just as muscular as they’d felt twenty minutes ago. He moved with long, purposeful strides that ate up the sidewalk, and Julia didn’t know whether she should meet him halfway and beg him not to mention the choking incident to Freckles, or whether she should hide in the overgrown azalea bush.
In the end, she was too mortified to do either. Her aunt motioned the man up the uneven cement path and onto the porch. “Kane Chatterson, meet my favorite grandniece, Dr. and Captain Julia Fitzgerald.”
The pride in her aunt’s voice blossomed inside Julia’s chest, nearly shadowing the lingering shame. Or was that just her elevated heartbeat?
“I’m your only niece,” Julia said, trying to lighten things up with a joke, but she succeeded only in making her nerves feel more weighed down. She cleared her throat and looked at Kane. “We weren’t formally introduced earlier.”
God, she hoped this man didn’t spill the beans to her aunt. His sunglasses shaded his eyes, and he certainly wasn’t smirking now, making it impossible for Julia to figure out if he was annoyed, amused or biding his time until Freckles left and he could tell her that she and her contracting job weren’t worth the trouble.
But Kane Chatterson simply gave her a brief, unsmiling nod before asking, “Do I call you Doctor or Captain?”
“Call me just Julia. Please.” She reached out her hand to shake his, and he gripped her fingers quickly, his warm calluses leaving an imprint on her palms. As a medical professional, she had no rational or scientific explanation for the shiver that vibrated down her spine. As a woman, her only explanation was that this new sensation was most likely the result of her aunt’s fresh lecture on dating. And possibly the fact that she hadn’t been this attracted to a man since...ever.
“Just Julia,” he replied. But still no smile.
She looked at her watch. She’d be out of here in ten minutes. Surely, she could pretend to be a normal, successful woman for another ten minutes.
“What do you mean, you weren’t formally introduced earlier?” Damn. Aunt Freckles didn’t miss a thing.
“We, uh, spoke briefly at the Cowgirl Up Café when our orders got mixed up this morning,” Kane told her aunt. The faint dusting of copper-colored stubble on his square jaw made it too difficult to tell if the man was actually blushing.
“Yeah, I figured the new waitress I hired wasn’t quite ready for me to leave her on her own,” Freckles replied, then turned to Julia and gave her a wink. “Seems like lots of people are getting stuff wrong this morning.”
“Here.” Julia handed the cell phone to her aunt, determined to prove that she hadn’t made a mistake. Or at least two of them. “It says right here on my calendar app that we were supposed to meet at the café.”
Since Freckles was busy tapping on the screen and Mr. Chatterson’s attention was on the yellow paint chipping off the wood siding of the house, Julia stole another look at his dour face. She’d been trying to save his life back at the café. Surely he couldn’t be irritated with her over that—unless the laughter she’d heard as she left the restaurant was directed at him. Maybe the guy’s ego had taken a hit. Or maybe his feet were cold and tired from walking all this way from the restaurant.
Julia glanced down at the scuffed cowboy boots. No, that sturdy, worn leather looked like they’d been walked in quite a lot. So his stiff demeanor most likely wasn’t the result of sore feet. She allowed her gaze to travel up his jeans-clad legs, past his untucked shirt and all the way to his green cap with the words Patterson’s Dairy embroidered in yellow on the front.
That funny tingling made its way down her spine again.
What was wrong with her? She didn’t stare at unsuspecting men or allow her body to get all jumbled full of hormones, no matter how good-looking they were. Julia reached up and tightened the elastic band in her hair, hoping he wouldn’t look over and catch her checking him out.
“Sug,” Aunt Freckles said, holding up the smartphone. “Somehow you managed to program the Cowgirl Up Café as the location for everything in your calendar this month—including five surgeries, two staff meetings, a seminar on neurological disorders and the Boise Philharmonic’s String Quintet.”
“Oh. Well, I haven’t had time to go over the new software update. Yet.” Julia waved her hand dismissively before powering off her screen. That wasn’t a real mistake. She had much more important things to accomplish than mastering some stupid scheduling app—like getting this tour underway if she wanted to report for duty on time. She pulled a key from the pocket of her cardigan sweater, the one Aunt Freckles said did nothing for her coloring or her figure, and asked Mr. Chatterson, “Would you like me to show you around inside?”
“I could probably figure it out on my own,” he said, then used the top step to wipe his boots as she unlocked the door. “But it wouldn’t hurt for you to tell me some of your ideas for the place.”
Well, wasn’t he being generous?
“Shouldn’t you grab a notepad?” Julia gestured toward his run-down truck-vehicle thing.
“Why?”
“So that you can take notes?”
“Don’t need to.”
“What about measurements? Surely you won’t be able to remember every little dimension.”
“No, ma’am. I probably won’t. In fact, there’s probably a lot of stuff I won’t remember. But I’ll get a sense of the house and what it needs, which is something no tape measure can show me.”
“But how will you give me an estimate?”
“If I decide to take the job,” he said, looking up at the large trees, their pine needles creeping toward the roof she was positive needed replacing, “I’ll come back and take measurements and write it all down neat and tidy for you.”
“Sug,” Freckles interrupted in a stage whisper. “Kane here knows what he’s doing. He doesn’t come into the operating room and tell you where to cut or how to dig around in someone’s brain.” Then, as if to lessen the rebuke, Freckles turned to the brooding contractor. “Julia’s a neurosurgeon in the Navy. Smart as a whip, my grandniece. Did I mention that?”
“I believe you did. Should we get started?” he asked, wiping his hand across his mouth. Then, without waiting for a response, he walked through the door as though he couldn’t care less about Julia’s abilities in the operating room or her whip-like intelligence. Not that she wanted the attention or expected him to be in awe of her, but it was one of the few times somebody hadn’t been impressed with her genius IQ.
The guy strode into her front parlor as though he owned the place, and Julia resented his take-charge attitude and her unexplainable physical response to him. However, he was the expert—supposedly—and she was intelligent enough to know that this old house needed much more than her surgical skills.
The trio made their way from room to room, and Julia lost track of the amount of times she had to tell Aunt Freckles that she didn’t love the idea of glitter-infused paint on the walls or a wet bar added to each of the three floors. When they finished the tour in the kitchen, Julia was already in jeopardy of being ten minutes late for her shift. Unfortunately, she didn’t trust her aunt not to suggest something outlandish in her absence.
“I say you get some of those cool retro turquoise appliances and redo all these cabinets with pink and white paint.” Freckles waved her arms like an air traffic controller. “Then you can do black-and-white-checkered tile and give it a real fifties’ vibe. If you knock out this wall, it will open up the kitchen to the family room.”
“Which room is the family room?” Julia rubbed at her temples before tightening her ponytail. Again.
“I believe that’s the room you referred to as the study,” Kane told her. His smirk gave off the impression that he was laughing at her for some reason. Again. “Or was that the informal parlor?”
“Either way,” Julia said. “I don’t want a fifties-themed anything in my house. Besides, remodeling the kitchen is my last concern.”
It was difficult to not startle at Freckle’s loud, indrawn breath. “Sug, no, no, no. The kitchen is the heart of the house. That should be the first thing Kane works on. How’re you gonna cook or eat if you don’t have a decent kitchen?”
“I don’t intend to do much cooking here. I eat most of my meals at the hospital, and as long as I have a refrigerator to store all the leftovers you give me, I should be just fine.”
The woman tipped her head back, then rubbed her fingers over her eyes. Julia feared her aunt was going to smear her purple eye shadow. “It’s just that with the Pumpkin Pie Parade coming up and then ski season right after, I’m going to be so busy at the café. I worry about you being all alone, not eating right and withering away to nothing.”
“I assure you, I value my health too much to allow myself to wither away,” Julia said. “But I know you worry about me, and if it makes you feel any better, I’ll buy a cookbook and teach myself some basic recipes. After all, how hard can it be?”
“Sug, I know most things come easy to you,” Freckles said, wrapping her thin arm around Julia’s waist. “But there’re a lot of things in life you just can’t learn from a book.”
Unfortunately Julia knew the truth of that statement all too well. Freckles was her last living relative and the reason Julia had transferred duty stations and moved to Idaho. If it would ease the woman’s mind to know that her only niece would have a fully functional kitchen, then Julia would give Sexy Flannel Shirt permission to start tearing out the old rotting cupboards today.
Julia leaned into Freckles’s one-armed embrace. She didn’t even have to look at the contractor’s estimate to know that no matter how absurdly high his price might be, she would end up hiring him just to appease the affectionate woman.
“Fine,” Julia said. “First things first, though. I need my bedroom to be in habitable condition. Then Mr. Chatterson can start on the kitchen. But no turquoise appliances or checkered floors. All design ideas need to be approved by me.”
“Of course, Sug.”
“Now I really need to get to the hospital,” Julia said, glancing at her watch. “Take your time looking around.”
“You want me to lock up afterward?” Kane asked after she hugged her aunt goodbye.
“That would be great, if you don’t mind. Do I need to sign anything?”
“Not until I send you the estimate. Like I said, I haven’t decided if this project is something that will fit into my schedule yet.”
Julia collected her leather satchel on her way to the front parlor, then glanced out of the glass-paned entryway toward his old car parked in her driveway. His schedule was probably chock-full of appointments involving lots of smirking and consultations on how to give strangers the silent treatment. Unfortunately for her, that kind of work likely didn’t pay his bills. Which meant she’d be stuck convincing herself that she could easily handle this unexpected attraction to her new contractor.
Chapter Two (#u6f04de1e-a3d6-58c4-95b0-2b3dfae4d066)
Kane let out a long breath, feeling some of the nervous energy leave his body. This was exactly the kind of job he loved—taking something so run-down and bringing it back to its former glory. But Dr. Captain Julia Fitzgerald was exactly the kind of client that he most assuredly did not love.
He’d first noticed the blonde woman the second she’d sat down at the counter of the Cowgirl Up Café. It was hard not to notice a pretty face like that, despite the fact that she’d kept mostly to herself and didn’t make eye contact with any of the other customers.
Not that he’d been in a real friendly mood himself these past two years. But before he knew it, the woman had her arms wrapped around him, her small, firm breasts pressed up against his back, and suddenly he hadn’t cared about the vegetables he’d accidentally bitten into because all he could think about was his desire for her clasped hands to travel downward. He’d reacted so quickly, almost knocking his head into her face, that he wasn’t quite sure what they’d even talked about after that. He’d seen a flush of embarrassment steal up her cheeks, and she’d pointed at something in his teeth before the entire restaurant broke out into laughter. Then she was gone before he could find out who she was.
An hour later, he still hadn’t recovered from the unexpected shock of seeing the same woman standing next to Freckles on the front porch. Nor had he stopped anxiously wiping his mouth or checking his teeth for residual spinach every time he’d passed his reflection in a window. So maybe he’d put on his game face when he’d been formally introduced to her, but she hadn’t exactly been real comfortable in his presence, either.
“You sure she’s your niece?” Kane asked Freckles now, looking out the kitchen window at Dr. Smarty-Pants sitting in her car, frowning at her cell phone. Yeah, he got the message loud and clear. The young woman was a doctor. She saved lives for a living. Apparently she even tried to save lives during her breakfast. He didn’t need a college degree to see that no matter how beautiful she was, she thought she was way too good for the likes of him.
“What? You don’t see the family resemblance?” the café-owner-and-sometimes-waitress asked.
He glanced back at the seventy-something-year-old woman, noting that her purple eye shadow was an exact match to the geometric pattern on the scarf tying up her orangeish hair. Just Julia, on the other hand, didn’t wear a lick of makeup, and her only accessory had been an ugly beige cardigan covering up the hospital scrubs he hadn’t noticed earlier at the café.
“Well, she’s almost as pretty as you, but she kind of reminds me of one of those Lego people I had when I was a boy,” he said, then tried to offer the woman his most charming smile. His mouth and his opinions had often gotten him into trouble before, and he hoped Freckles didn’t object to his honesty.
But the sassy older lady just beamed a crooked grin, then sauntered over to join him by the window. “Yeah, she’s a little stiff and formal, but she’ll come around once I give her a good makeover.”
Actually, Kane would’ve used the words cold and inanimate to describe her. Just Julia was exactly like those academic decathlon snobs Kane had avoided in high school. The ones who were standoffish and thought less of him because he was some dumb jock. Not counting the high-handed way she’d talked down to him at the café, the woman had barely said three words to him, directing most of her comments to her aunt.
“What’s she doing to that poor phone?” he asked when he saw Julia shake the device before throwing it onto the dash of her car and backing out of the driveway.
Freckles sighed. “Poor girl’s not so good with technology. But don’t you dare tell her I said that. She’s used to being the best at whatever she sets her mind to.”
“I’ll bet that doesn’t help much when it comes to interpersonal relationships,” he said.
“You’re one to talk, Kane Chatterson,” Freckles responded, and he could see the disapproval in every wrinkle on her face. A wave of remorse lodged in his gut. As usual, he’d said the first thing that popped into his mind, not thinking that it might come out as an insult. He was always too quick, too impulsive. “We all have our flaws, son.”
Kane didn’t want to think about the reasons that he’d practically been hiding out in Sugar Falls for the past few months. So he wiggled his eyebrows and shot a grin at Freckles instead. “And what exactly are your flaws?”
“None of your beeswax, you little charmer.” She smacked his arm lightly, and the playful gesture helped loosen the knot in his gut. “And speaking of charm, don’t you get any ideas about putting those famous Chatterson moves on my Julia, you hear?”
“Ha!” Kane tried to laugh. “What famous moves?”
“She’s not real savvy when it comes to people, especially anything involving business and dating. She’s too trusting. She needs worldly people like us to look out for her.”
“I think you’re doing a fine job of looking out for her.” All on your own, he thought, but didn’t dare say out loud. In fact, Kane pitied the man who was stupid enough to get on Freckles’s bad side. And not just because they’d be banned from her restaurant and the best chicken-fried steak in Idaho.
“You keep that in mind. Julia’s nothing like those major-league groupies you got used to when you were playing baseball.”
He tried not to roll his eyes. How could he get anything from his notorious past out of his mind when everywhere he turned, it was getting brought up? Most people in town knew not to bring up his past career as a major-league pitcher or the scandal in Chicago if they wanted to engage Kane in more than five minutes of conversation. And usually five minutes was his max. Which meant this little chat with Freckles had gone on way too long.
“Don’t worry. I’ll give your niece a fair price, and you can rest assured that I have absolutely no intention of bringing the so-called Chatterson moves out of retirement.” He pulled the antique watch out of the pocket of his jeans and clicked the cover open and closed a few times. “Come on. I’ll give you a ride back to the café so you can make me a new burrito.”
“Fine, but you’re paying full price for a second meal.” Freckles sighed and hopped up into the Bronco. She was much sprier than most women her age—whatever age that was. “So, you’re saying my niece isn’t attractive or smart enough for you?”
“That’s not what I said at all, and you know it.” He slammed the door a little more forcefully than necessary, wanting to cut off any further discussion on this subject. People with half their eyesight could see that Just Julia was drop-dead gorgeous, even if she kept her classic beauty hidden underneath those ugly hospital clothes and an aloof exterior. He wasn’t about to admit to Freckles—or anyone—that every muscle in his body hardened the moment she’d reached out and shaken his hand. Kane hadn’t been remodeling homes for long, but he already had a few rules for himself.
Rule Number One. He worked alone.
Rule Number Two. He always packed an extra sandwich in case time got away from him and he found himself on the job after dinnertime, which happened nearly every day.
Rule Number Three. He wouldn’t work for a client who didn’t have the same vision he did for the outcome of the property. Some people might think this was bad business sense, but it wasn’t as though Kane was in this line of work for the money. He didn’t believe in working for free, but his past salary and careful investing pretty much negated the need for him ever to work again. He’d started this business because he loved to build things and see his ideas come to life, not because he loved being around people.
Today, he would add Rule Number Four. He wouldn’t date a client, no matter how attracted he was to her. That would be an easy enough rule to follow. Unlike Just Julia, Kane’s heart wasn’t in need of protection. It was retired, along with his pitching glove.
“So, what do you see for the house?” Kane asked her aunt as he climbed in and started up the classic car he’d been refurbishing in his spare time.
He listened to Freckles’s chatter as he steered the Bronco back into town, noting that all of her suggestions were the complete opposite of what her niece wanted. Which, actually, made following Rule Number Three rather easy. He and Just Julia definitely saw eye to eye about keeping the same features of the stately old house and just repairing and refinishing everything to bring it back to its original splendor.
Kane turned onto Snowflake Boulevard, the street that ran through downtown Sugar Falls, and pulled in front of the Cowgirl Up Café to let Freckles out. Neither his stomach nor his still-tense muscles were settled yet and he promised her he would stop in for lunch instead. He waved to a few of the locals, keeping his green cap pulled down low just in case there were any tourists out and about looking for an autograph or a sly selfie with the elusive “Legend” Chatterson.
God, he hated that nickname. And he’d grown to hate the celebrity status that came along with it.
What he did like was the slower pace of the small town, along with the refuge and the anonymity it had provided him. So far. The scandal of Brawlgate was finally dying down, and he didn’t want to challenge fate by coming out of hiding too soon. Plus, Kane was finding that as much as he missed pitching, there was something to be said for living out of the spotlight. Despite fielding the occasional calls from his sports agent and former coaches, he was free to do whatever he wanted. Like tinker on his old cars and rebuild homes. And right now, there was a deteriorating Victorian on Pinecone Court calling his name.
As he drove back to the house, he reached under his seat and pulled out a notepad. So maybe he hadn’t been completely honest about not needing that. Kane parked the car and grabbed a tape measure from his tool bag in the backseat. Because he had issues focusing, Kane had a tendency to get so absorbed in a project that he would forget about his surroundings and tune out everything and everyone around him. And when that happened, he preferred not to have potential clients think he was off his rocker.
Since he hadn’t given the key back to Freckles yet, he could spend some more time in the house on his own, exploring it and making notes.
He just hoped that when he made those notes and calculated the costs, he didn’t spell anything wrong or add incorrectly on the formal estimate.
Concentrating on schoolwork had never been his strong suit, and he’d rather have a busload of newscasters from ESPN roll into Sugar Falls and reveal his hiding spot than have Just Julia look down her cute, smarty-pants nose at him.
* * *
By the time he pulled into a visitor parking spot at Shadowview Military Hospital the second Thursday in November, Kane was already five minutes late for his group session. Well, not his group session—one run by his brother-in-law, Drew.
He stopped by the Starbucks kiosk in the lobby and ordered a decaf Frappuccino because he hated sitting still in those introductory meetings with nothing to do, nothing to hold on to. Unable to wait, he stuck his tongue through the hole of the domed plastic lid to taste the whipped cream, then kept his head down as he walked through the large, plain lobby. Kane navigated his way down the fall-themed decorated corridors of the first floor until he found the psychology department, which was directly across from the physical rehab department.
Dr. Drew Gregson had explained that he wanted his patients with PTSD to understand their therapy was no different than someone learning how to walk again after losing a limb. Tonight he was meeting with a new group in a classroom-like setting—and Kane hated classrooms. They would eventually meet out on the track, in the weight room and on various courts and fields.
When Kane had been doing physical therapy after his shoulder surgery, his sister, Kylie, had talked him into coming to work out at the hospital. Drew had been looking for innovative ways to assist his PTSD patients in their recovery, and helped his wife convince Kane that exercising with them would be a great motivator for some of the men and women who used athletics as a physical outlet. Especially since most of the group’s sessions ended up in some challenge that usually provided one of the patients with bragging rights that they’d competed against Legend Chatterson.
Good thing his ego could take it. Being at Shadowview—seeing the world through the eyes of the wounded warriors and the staff who helped them—always put things into perspective for Kane. These people were dealing with legitimate life-or-death situations. Brawlgate, his former baseball career, being attracted to his new client...none of that seemed as important when he was faced with real obstacles to overcome.
