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Poor Riley hadn’t wanted to move, especially two weeks before Christmas and Delia couldn’t say that she blamed him. This wouldn’t have been her first choice, either—or any choice, for that matter. But her mother, with her worsening multiple sclerosis, needed the kind of care only a nursing facility could give her—or a live-in doctor.
Delia had the right training. Could she do any less for the family she loved?
She’d soon discovered she was needed in other ways, too. Her email had been overflowing since she’d announced her return. Friends were quick to remind her that old Doc Severns had retired a few months back, and the entire town was without a practicing M.D. Serendipity’s clinic had been closed. Now that Delia had moved back, she intended to take over the practice. Not only would she be able to help her own mother, but she could also make a real difference in the community—to the friends and neighbors she’d grown up with and still cared about.
She sighed and brushed her long, straight black hair back with her fingers. Even with all of the dynamic changes in her life, it wasn’t so much the future that weighed so heavily on her mind.
It was the past.
Zach Bowden, to be precise.
Serendipity’s own James Dean in faded jeans and a white T-shirt, with dreamy poet eyes and bad boy ways. Trouble with a capital T. The man she’d left behind but had never forgotten. The only man who’d ever completely captured her heart.
And her worst nightmare.
Zach was the reason Delia had left town so suddenly all those years ago, and he was the reason she’d never returned to Serendipity, not even to visit. Even with all the time that had passed, he was the reason she was having such a hard time concentrating on the books. She couldn’t get him out of her mind.
Serendipity was a very small town. Sooner or later the two of them would cross paths, and when they did, Delia had no doubt that her life would go into a tailspin.
So, for that matter, would Zach’s, when he found out the truth about why she’d stayed away.
And Riley?
Her decision to move home had everything to do with her son, who had recently started asking tough questions about his father, painful questions Delia had been unable to answer. It was her deepest fear that Riley would be the one most injured by the choices she’d made—and was making now.
A persistent knot throbbed behind her left eye. She rubbed her temple to relieve the pounding pain. Between accounting and Zach, it would be almost impossible for her to avoid a headache, both literally and figuratively.
No matter how she felt, she had to press on. The only way to look to the future here in Serendipity was to settle the past. Do the right thing—whatever that was. For Delia, the lines between right and wrong had been cloudy and gray for years.
She tried to turn her mind back to the present, but she found it difficult to concentrate. Math had never been her strong suit. She retrieved the pencil she’d tucked behind her ear and wiggled the computer mouse so the screen would come back to life. The software she was using was supposed to help, but instead it managed to confuse her all the more.
She could do this, she reminded herself.
Financials were part and parcel of operating a small-town clinic. For now, she needed to conquer the numbers on her own. Although, later, she planned to hire a receptionist to take up much of the slack.
A steady, persistent knock startled Delia and she jerked up in surprise. No one should be here yet. The sign in the window still said that the clinic was closed for business, and she wasn’t expecting any deliveries this afternoon; but whoever was rapping on the rear door was certainly insistent.
Still a little hazy from the mental strain of bookkeeping and the emotional strain of moving home to Serendipity, she went to see who it was. An ambulance had backed up within feet of the clinic doors, the lights still flashing. She realized that she must have been completely lost in her thoughts, for she hadn’t heard a siren, although she supposed it was possible they hadn’t used one.
Nonetheless, her mind instantly shifted into doctor mode. Adrenaline pumped through her and erased all the fogginess from her brain. She didn’t give a thought to the fact that she was not officially open for business. Someone needed help. That’s what she was here for.
Her focus was completely on the patient as the EMT who’d been driving moved around to the back of the ambulance and swung the doors open. She recognized the first paramedic, Ben Atwood, and she knew the man strapped to the gurney—Drew “Spence” Spencer, the fifth-grade teacher at the elementary school in town. He was attached to an IV and his face was bunched up in pain as he cradled his left arm to his chest.
She held open the door and gestured them inside as the second EMT exited the ambulance and moved to the other side of the gurney to help guide it in.
“You know Drew Spencer.”
Delia’s breath caught as she flashed her gaze to the paramedic who was speaking to her.
Zach.
Her heart slammed to a halt and then lurched back into action. Zach’s voice had deepened some, but even after all these years, she recognized his distinctive honey-rich drawl immediately.
How could it be that Zach was an emergency medical technician? Not only that, but an unpaid volunteer, as the tri-county fire department couldn’t afford a full-time staff.
She was so surprised that a proverbial feather could have knocked her over. Zach had never cared for anyone but himself—he’d proven that more times than she cared to count.
She felt as if she were participating in a strobe-lit, slow-motion theater scene as she turned to lock eyes with her old flame. Surely the distance, the time, would make some sort of difference in her feelings for him, or at least mute them in some way.
Back then she’d been young. Irrational. Naive.
And totally in love.
She knew better now.
But the moment her gaze met the dreamy chocolate depths of his eyes, she realized nothing had changed. It was as if the years between them hadn’t passed at all, if her heart had anything to say about it.
One corner of his lips twitched upward in a lady-killer smile that had sent more than one young woman’s heart aflutter. He took a deep breath and exhaled and Delia realized she was breathing right in synch with him.
He was still incredibly good-looking in that rough-edged, bad boy way of his. Her gaze slid over him, remembering every detail of his lean, muscular six-foot frame.
His wind ruffled, shaggy brown hair was cut only marginally shorter than it had been when he was younger. The straight nose and strong jaw were the same—although his skin was more weathered and there were stress lines on his face. A haunted, pained expression had replaced the jaunty, carefree attitude he’d carried as a youth.
Without giving it a second thought, she took a couple of steps toward him.
“Zach,” she murmured.
He reacted as if she’d pushed him, jerking his shoulder away and stepping hastily backward out of her reach. A muscle twitched in the corner of his jaw as he broke his gaze away from her.
She experienced a stab of something suspiciously like rejection, but that only lasted for a second before panic set in.
Zach was here. And Riley was in the next room.
Her heart beat frantically as she considered her options, not that she had any. She could hardly bolt out of the room to go get Riley and then run away and hope Zach didn’t see them.
She didn’t know when—or even if—she was going to tell Zach he had a son; but definitely not this soon. Not in these circumstances. She could only hope Riley was too caught up in setting up the video system to bother checking out what was happening in the exam room.
Mindfully, and with all the willpower she possessed, she calmed her nerves and turned her attention to her patient, where it belonged.
Zach’s introduction of Spence had been a little off-script for what one would expect in a big hospital. But this was Serendipity, which was an extremely close-knit community. Everyone literally did know everyone. She’d gone to school with Spence, although he’d been several grades above her.
“He has second-degree burns on his left hand and forearm,” Zach continued crisply as he hung the IV bag on a hook on the wall and then helped his partner transfer Spence to the examining table. “His vitals are stable and we gave him morphine for the pain. Under normal circumstances we would have taken him to the nearest hospital, but I thought we should get his wound looked at as soon as possible, and now that you’re here in town…well, I hope you don’t mind that we brought him here to the clinic.”
“No, no, I don’t mind at all. I’m happy you thought of me.” Actually, she had all kinds of conflicting emotions about the idea that Zach had thought of her, but again she willfully tucked her feelings into the back of her heart to scrutinize later.
“My father went and called 9-1-1 after I asked him not to,” Spence explained in a raspy tone. “I really didn’t need an ambulance.”
“Sure you did,” Ben disagreed affably. He and Zach supported Spence as he transferred himself from the gurney to the examining table.
“You’re just too stubborn to admit it,” Zach added with a chuckle.
Even though Delia didn’t say so aloud, she agreed with Zach and Ben. She was glad old Frank Spencer had responded with an emergency call. Spence might not have thought he needed attention, but burns were nothing to play with.
“You’ve got this?” Ben asked Zach.
Zach’s lips flattened into a straight line, but after a moment he gave Ben a clipped nod.
Ben looked from Zach to Delia and back, his expression unconvinced. Everyone in this town knew Zach and Delia’s history together. Ben was no doubt wondering if leaving them alone together was the best idea.
“We’re fine,” Delia assured him.
Ben tapped his clipboard and nodded, and then turned for the door. “I’ll get to the paperwork, then.”
“So what have we got here?” she asked her patient. Wrapping a blood pressure cuff around Spence’s right arm, she leaned over the grimacing man and carefully drew back the blanket that covered his left hand.
The area across the back of his hand and halfway up his forearm was red and blistered, but Delia was relieved to find it looked no more serious than a second-degree burn, something she could treat here at the clinic.
Spence grimaced and Zach moved to his side, laying his large, reassuring hand on Spence’s shoulder.
“Hang in there, buddy,” he murmured gently.
Delia felt a wave of emotion reach her throat at the kindness in his words and actions. She was completely unprepared for the sizzling epiphany that reached both her heart and her head at the same time.
Zach wasn’t the boy she had left behind.
He was a man now, and not just in the way his lanky teenaged frame had filled out with solid muscle, either. For whatever reason, he volunteered his time and capability in a career dedicated to helping others. It wasn’t his usual self-centered M.O., or at least it hadn’t been, and she realized it would take her awhile to change her perspective. She’d grown up—she was far different from the teenager she’d been when she left.
Perhaps Zach was different, too—maturing into the man standing with her now.
She hoped her observations about Zach had at least some basis in truth. Riley needed a good, stable influence from his father, not the hot-cold, on-again/off-again relationship she feared might happen.
Had Zach changed—or was it just that paramedic work provided the adrenaline that he so craved? It was still too soon to tell.
“How did this happen, Spence?” she queried gently as she unwrapped the wound.
“I was boiling water,” Spence explained, wincing. “The twins’ favorite meal is spaghetti.”
Delia smiled and arched her brows as she closely examined the red and blistering skin. Keeping a patient talking kept his mind off the pain. “I didn’t know you had children. Boys? Girls?”
“Boys. Matty and Jamey. They just turned three and they’re a real handful, let me tell you.”
Delia thought of Riley at age three and had to agree, if only to herself. Obviously she couldn’t say what she was thinking out loud.
“Really cute little buggers,” Zach confirmed with a grin, though he didn’t look at Delia when he spoke. “They’re both on the junior T-ball team I coach every spring. They’ll be ready to move up into the major leagues pretty soon.”
Zach was a coach?
For a kid’s team?
She was equally relieved and flustered by the new information, but she’d learned a long time ago the necessity of compartmentalizing her thoughts and feelings when she was dealing with a patient. Right now her mind had to be on her work.
“So your burn is from the water?” she asked, turning Spence’s hand over to examine the palm.
“Yeah, that and the steaming pot. One of the twins screamed and I lost my focus—just for a moment. When I turned back to the stove, the water was overflowing. I scrambled to take the pot off the burner bare-handed, without even thinking about what I was doing.”
“Looks like you scalded yourself pretty good, buddy,” Zach said in a gentle, teasing voice.
Spence grimaced. “Pretty stupid, huh?”
“No, of course not,” Delia replied. “Accidents happen. Don’t worry. I can fix you up.”
Just for a moment, her gaze met Zach’s. His eyes were surprisingly full of compassion.
“Happens to the best of us, big guy.” Zach winked at his neighbor. “I’ve had my fair share of accidents myself.”
That was an understatement if Delia had ever heard one.
Zach Bowden was an accident waiting to happen, and Delia wasn’t positive she was any more prepared for him this time around than she had been as a teenager.
She continued to examine Spence without blinking an eye, but internally she was in turmoil. She might be able to fool the others but she could never fool herself. Today’s encounter with Zach had changed the playing field entirely, and she didn’t know what to do with what she had learned.
She didn’t know the man Zach Bowden had become.
Worse yet, she wasn’t over him.
Chapter Two
On the outside, at least, Zach kept his attention on his ailing neighbor, but, surreptitiously, he watched Delia work, his heart drinking in the presence of the woman who had once been his whole life like a man who’d spent years in the desert with no water.
In a way, that was exactly what he was. He had told himself a million times that he wouldn’t care if he ever saw Delia again in his life, but he now knew that was a flat-out lie.
How could he not care when she had taken his heart and smashed it into thousands of pieces?
Time hadn’t healed his wounds, nor had it changed the way his heart leaped out of his chest every time their eyes met. It shook him to the core to discover that despite the anger and bitterness he felt toward her, his attraction to her had only deepened with the passage of time.
She was beautiful.
She’d always been pretty, but now there was a new maturity shining from those huge sapphire-blue eyes of hers. Her black hair, which she’d worn shoulder-length as a teen, now flowed in thick, glossy waves down her back. Her rich alto voice had matured to be smooth as silk, wrapping around a man’s senses like a warm wind.
“On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the worst pain you can imagine, how do you feel?” Delia asked Spence in a soft, reassuring tone.
“Still about a five or six,” Spence said with a groan. “Man, this really hurts.”
“That’s actually good news,” Delia informed him, and Zach silently concurred. “When you really start to worry about a burn is if it doesn’t hurt at all.”
“Great,” Spence muttered.
Delia chuckled.
