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“You must be Dr. McLaren. I thought…I thought you were old,” she stammered as her eyes adjusted to the gloom. He wasn’t only a much younger man—probably in his mid-thirties at the most—but he was striking in that tall, dark, and dangerous sort of way that always made her self-conscious about her very ordinary self. “When you didn’t answer, I…um…I was afraid that you might be dead.”
“Unfortunately, no,” he growled. He glanced at her upraised hands, then met her eyes with a piercing stare. “So who are you, and why are you threatening me with a can of salmon?” His gaze slid over to the folder in her other hand. “Second thought—just forget it and go away.”
He started to close the door. She stopped it with her foot. “I can’t leave. I’m Sophie Alexander, your new physical therapist, from the county home health agency.”
“Well, Sophie, maybe you’re the new therapist, but you’re wrong. You certainly can leave.”
“No, I can’t.”
“The others did, which was fine with me.”
“Look. I’ve been given my schedule, and Grace Dearborn—”
“Grace.” He sighed heavily.
“Right. Ms. Dearborn made it very clear that I had to follow through without fail on every person in my caseload. And honestly? Today hasn’t been good. I’ve been scratched and bitten by an eighty-seven-year-old woman with Alzheimer’s who should be in a care center, not living with her son. And I have been screamed at by an old man who was sure I was his ex-wife come back to life, and who called 911, while I was there. You can call 911 too, or you can just let me in and we’ll talk about where you’re at with your therapy. Okay? Because either way, I’m not leaving. I cannot let Grace down.”
He scowled back at her, obviously impressed…or maybe, just stunned into silence.
“Please.” She softened her tone. “It was a long drive up here. I’d like to get this visit over before that storm hits, so I can get back to town before the roads wash out. Okay?”
“Why does pleasing Grace mean so much to you? It’s just a job.”
“It means a lot more to me than you could ever imagine. So now, can we get down to business?”
For someone who couldn’t be more than five foot three and a hundred pounds soaking wet, the latest physical therapist to land on his doorstep appeared to be one very determined woman. He could only hope that she wasn’t as stubborn as she looked, but right now the fiery gleam in those pretty green eyes spelled trouble.
“Well?” She pinned him with a steady look. “Can I come in?”
Josh gritted his teeth and inwardly braced himself to mask his pain as he waved her on into the great room of the cabin. “Suit yourself.”
She hit him with a blinding smile, then traipsed on in, coochy-cooed his dog, Bear, who—traitor that he was—moaned with pleasure at her soft touch and followed her when she headed for the sofa under the moose head mounted on the wall.
She gave the moose a sad look, then angled a disapproving glance in Josh’s direction.
“Don’t look at me—he came with the cabin.” Josh turned on a table lamp beside his chair and waited until she settled on the couch with a folder in her lap that probably told her more about him than he wanted anyone to know—much less some perky little pixie who was planning to gush platitudes and false empathy about his “situation,” and then come up with yet another completely useless plan to turn his life around.
He’d been there, done that, and wasn’t going there again with anyone—even if this gal did have a smile that could rival the lighting in a surgical suite.
Glancing between the can of salmon in her hand and the rapt attention of the dog at her feet, she set the can on the table at the end of the couch and waggled a forefinger at Bear. “Don’t even think about it.”
“How do I know you haven’t poisoned my dog with that stuff?”
“I love dogs. I’m just not sure about the ones that meet me with a snarl, and I happened to have the salmon in a grocery bag I forgot to take out of my car last night. But believe me, after meeting several grumpy dogs and their even grumpier owners today I’ll always carry something yummy in the future. Pays to make friends.” She gave him a slow appraisal. “What about you? Ghirardelli? Lindt?”
He masked a startled bark of laughter with a deeper scowl.
“Well, then, let’s get on with things, okay?” she continued smoothly. “I suspect that with your medical background, you know far more than I do about your injuries and how to provide the exact type of therapy for regaining maximum function.”
Did he? Not really. Not anymore. He’d specialized in emergency medicine, not the long haul of restorative medicine that often followed severe injuries, and after ten years of intense focus on his own field, what he knew was based more on logic and what was now outdated information from medical school.
“But then that would beg the question of why you haven’t achieved that progress on your own.” She smiled gently. “My guess is that you do need me. Because I can provide the kind of deep massage, flexibility exercises and encouragement to get you to where you want to be.”
He snorted. He was exactly where he wanted to be. Where he deserved to be. “Spend your time on those other clients in your caseload.”
“I will. But I’ll be coming here, as well.”
“I don’t think—”
“We’ve got a deadline, Dr. McLaren. Both of us do, given the time limitation on your insurance policy and my boss.”
“I don’t honestly care.”
She leaned forward, her delicate brows drawing together. “Let’s give this a good shot anyway. I know I can help you. Let me prove it.”
“I don’t want this. Understand?” Guilt lanced through him at the stricken expression in her eyes, and he had to steel himself against the feeling that he’d just kicked a puppy.
But the others had given up and she would, too. He’d make sure of it.
She blasted him with another one of her dazzling smiles as she stood and headed for him, then thrust out a hand. Without thinking, he reflexively accepted her handshake, feeling a little dazed at the firm clasp of her delicate hand.
“I think we’ll get along just great. I’ll be back Friday, so we can start with a baseline assessment and some goal setting.”
He stared after her as she let herself out the door and closed it behind her.
She was coming back?
He’d have to make himself perfectly clear, if she did show up again. He didn’t want her intruding in his life. He didn’t want anyone promising the moon and stars, and the prospect of a full and rewarding future.
Because after what he’d done—and what he’d failed to do—that was the stuff of fairy tales, not reality. And he only wanted to be left alone.
Back in town, Sophie sloshed through the county office building to Grace’s, her feet soaked and cold, her hair a sodden mess. Her first day on the job had presented more challenges than she ever could have imagined, but it was the final home visit that disturbed her the most.
Grace looked up from her computer screen and surveyed her from head to toe. “What happened to you?”
“My last appointment. The storm was only half the problem, believe me.”
“You look like a drowned rat—pardon the cliché.”
“I had a difficult time even getting to my car, it was raining so hard, and the roads up there turned to deep mud. I was lucky to get back.”
Grace gave her an appraising look. “So you did see Dr. McLaren.” Sophie nodded.
“And how did it go?”
Sophie braced her hands on the front edge of Grace’s desk. “There should have been much more documentation in his files. That man has had severe injuries. Multiple surgeries. I cannot imagine the pain he has suffered. And all I had were the therapy orders and a brief page of progress notes—by therapists who apparently didn’t get to first base. I wasn’t prepared at all. And,” she added softly, feeling another surge of regret, “because of that, I’m afraid I was really hard on him.”
“Good.”
“Good? I’m embarrassed. I normally wouldn’t talk to a client like that. But when I got there, no one answered the door. I thought he was old and might be dead in there, and then—”
A smile flitted across Grace’s face. “But you got in the door.”
“Well, yes.”
“And he talked to you. Right?”
“He wasn’t very happy about it.”
“Did he tell you about the accident itself—how it happened?”
“No. I asked when I was leaving, and his face practically turned to granite. He said he wasn’t going to talk about it, and suddenly that was the end of our visit.” She shivered a little at the memory, because she’d seen pain in his eyes that was so bleak, so beyond reaching, that she could only imagine what he’d been through. “I think he could be a very intimidating man…but now he simply doesn’t care about anything or anyone. Except maybe his dog.”
“I’ll leave it up to him, if he wants to tell you about what happened, though he probably won’t.” Grace pushed away from her desk and went to look out the window facing Main Street. “But you’re right—he no longer cares. A number of our therapists have tried to help him, and he wouldn’t see any of them a second time. He’s at the end of the line for us because his insurance coverage for therapy runs out in sixty days. But if you don’t give up on him, you have a chance of giving him back his life, Sophie.”
“I’m not sure he’ll let me in the door next time.”
Grace turned around to face her. “Like I told you before, if you prove your mettle by succeeding with your clients, I give you my promise that you’ll have a full-time job here. If Paul comes back at the end of August and wants to keep his job, I’ll find a way to stretch the budget, because I know we can keep two good therapists busy. Is that a deal?”
She couldn’t contain her smile. “Absolutely.”
Eli would have his school. His friends. They wouldn’t have to move to some big anonymous city, where they wouldn’t know their neighbors, and where Eli could be lost in the shuffle and never receive the kind of help he needed. They wouldn’t have to leave the little house where Eli felt secure.
It was exactly what she’d hoped for, all along. But still, a niggle of worry crept back into her thoughts.
What if she failed?
Chapter Two
Stepping into Aspen Creek Books early on a Saturday morning had always filled Sophie with a warm sense of peace and happiness.
Until today.
Glancing at the imposing grandfather clock by the front register, she hurried to the back of the store, peeling off her light sweater along the way while juggling a manila folder and her purse.
The comforting scents of fresh-brewed, blueberry-flavored coffee and peach tea barely registered as she walked into the circle of easy chairs and rockers at the back and dropped into the nearest one.
Beth Carrigan, dressed in a long denim skirt and a canary blouse that accented her wild tumble of chestnut curls, looked up from the coffee she was pouring at the old oak credenza along the wall. Her gray eyes filled with instant sympathy. “Oh, no. Not again.”
The other two women were already seated, and both leaned forward with matching expressions of dismay.
“Yes, again.” Sophie sighed. “I think I need to ask you all to start praying because my prayers aren’t doing the job.”
“We’ve all been doing just that—even Hannah,” Olivia Carlson murmured gently. At forty-nine, she was the oldest of the five book club members, with prematurely silver hair cut in an elegant, supershort style that framed her dark brows and regal bone structure. Hannah was the youngest, but she was still away, helping with a family crisis in Texas.
“I guess there’s no guarantee that my job on the county home health team will be permanent, no matter how well I do. Did you see the article in yesterday’s newspaper?”
“Big cutbacks,” Olivia murmured. “In almost every department.”
“And the article says that the Home Health Agency will suffer one of the largest. How can Grace even consider asking the board to hiring me full-time after her other therapist comes back? They’ll laugh in her face.”
Keeley North pushed her blond hair out of her eyes and frowned. “But surely if there’s a need…”
“It won’t matter if there’s no money. I’m beginning to think I’ll be trying to pay off college loans and raise Eli on restaurant minimum wage if I don’t find something permanent soon.”
“Maybe God just has different timing in mind,” Olivia said. “Who knows what He has in store?”
Sophie managed a rueful smile. “If He could just give me a hint, I would rest a little easier.”
“Surely something will turn up, sweetie,” Keeley said with a sad shake of her head. “I just don’t understand why this is taking so long. I mean, you’d think physical therapy graduates would be in high demand. Just look at all the baby boomers these days.”
“The economy has led to cutbacks at the small town hospitals and clinics all over the area.” Sophie dropped her keys into her purse and set it beside her chair, then drummed her fingernails on the folder in her lap. “I know I could find a job in the Twin Cities or Chicago. But being a single mom and not knowing anyone there would be so hard. And then there are Eli’s special classes…”
Beth cut through the circle of chairs and handed her a cup of coffee. “Double creamer, two sugars. Maybe a sugar high and a little caffeine will help.”
Gratefully accepting the coffee, Sophie rolled her eyes. “Only if it can work some magic on what’s in this envelope from the Two Lakes Medical Center. It’s the one application I haven’t heard back on yet. I brought the letter because I just couldn’t bear to open it at home alone, and didn’t want to open it in front of Eli, either. He’s already worrying about leaving here.”
Flipping the folder open, she lifted the top envelope from a stack of ten recent rejections and handed it to Keeley. “You read it. I just can’t.”
Keeley darted a worried look at the others, then held the envelope in her hands for a moment before sliding a fingernail under the flap. She withdrew the document. Opened it slowly. After scanning it, she looked at Sophie, her eyes filling with even greater sympathy. “I…”
“It’s okay.” Sophie sagged into her chair. “I wasn’t expecting good news.”
“But wait—” Keeley smoothed the paper out with her hand. “They do say—right down here—that they’ve had a hiring freeze since January, and they’ll keep your application on file. That’s good, isn’t it? Maybe someone will go on a long maternity leave.”
“Or fly to the moon.” Sophie shook off her glum thoughts. “I’m sorry, I didn’t come here to moan about my problems. Maybe something will open up after my county job ends. And it’s a beautiful morning, right? It’s time to think positive.”
Keeley offered a bright smile. “If you need extra work, I could give you some hours at my store. Edna keeps saying she’s going to retire.”
“Edna has been saying that since she turned eighty, and what I know about antiques would fit in her little finger,” Sophie said drily. “But either way, thanks for the offer.”
“And I could use some extra hours here now that Elana is in school full-time,” Beth added.
“You guys are the best. I mean that.” Sophie dissolved into helpless laughter. “But you really don’t need me, and I refuse to be a burden to any of you.”
Olivia’s forehead creased in a worried frown. “But what will you do?”
Keeley handed the letter back, and Sophie put it in the folder with all the rest of her fading dreams. “I’ve tried every possible community hospital and clinic within a fifty-mile radius. I…guess I’ll just have to keep checking back with all of them. And I’ll also need to start looking much farther away.”
“Don’t give up, sweetie. Things will work out.”
Sophie thought of leaving the sweet little cottage she and her late husband, Rob, had bought just before his death two years ago. Then she thought of her crotchety grandpa, who refused to take care of his health or move from his little house in the woods, on the edge of town. And the teachers, who were gently helping her seven-year-old son learn to function better, despite his very mild form of Asperger’s.
This was the town she loved. The one that held poignant memories of happier times.
But sentiment wouldn’t pay her mortgage and school loans, or put food on the table, and Eli deserved better than having a mom who worked six days a week for minimum wage and who left him at his grandparents’ house way too much. And once her dad and stepmom moved to Florida this fall, what then? Paying full price for child care would be almost impossible on her tight budget.
Keeley flopped back in her chair and scooped her long, honey-blond hair back with both hands. “If you have to leave, things will never be the same. We’ll miss you so much!”
