“Colin?”
He could hear Harlee’s voice, but it sounded so small and muffled, like she was far, far away.
“Colin?” She reached for him, but her hand singed him. He was so hot. “Colin, what’s happening to you?”
He held on to the windowsill for stability, trying to keep upright. “Acupuncturist,” he said, but wasn’t sure the words had made it past his lips. “Trying to kill me.”
Then everything went black.
Harlee grabbed the phone and dialed 9-1-1. About twenty minutes later, Chief Shepard and an ambulance rolled down Colin’s driveway.
“He’s conscious,” she told the chief as he came through the door, amazed at how calm she sounded, when she’d never been more worried in her life. “I’ve been applying cold compresses, but he’s burning with fever.”
Two paramedics pushed by her and the chief followed them to the office, where Colin lay prone on the hardwood floor.
“Hey, Colin,” one of the medics called, while the other checked his vital signs and inserted an IV into his arm. “Heck, man, the last time I saw you, someone had tried to knock your head off.”
Colin didn’t reply, but Harlee flicked her head at the police chief. “What is he talking about?”
“It’s a long story.” The chief turned to the paramedics. “You taking him to Plumas General Hospital?”
“Yeah,” one of the medics responded. “His temperature is close to a hundred and four degrees.”
“Could acupuncture do this?” Harlee asked, and all three men stopped what they were doing to look at her.
“Come again?” one of them asked.
She didn’t want to give away any of Colin’s confidences, but if it had something to do with his fever, they needed to know. “He just got back from an acupuncture appointment.”
“If the needles weren’t sterilized, he could’ve gotten a bacterial or viral infection. But same day?” The guy looked dubious. “Seems unlikely.”
“We’ve gotta go,” the other one said, and they lifted Colin onto a gurney, strapped him down, and started to carry him out of the house.
Harlee jogged to keep up with them, and when they reached the back of the ambulance she said, “Wait a sec. He’s got claustrophobia. Did you transport him in an ambulance last time, when he got hit in the head?” She had every intention of getting to the bottom of that story, but it could wait.
“He was unconscious,” the police chief said, walking to the side of the stretcher. “Hey, Colin, you okay to ride back there?”
Colin groaned something unintelligible.
“I’m going with him,” Harlee said, afraid that Colin was delirious from fever but would freak out as soon as he found himself in close quarters.
“Are you related to him?” one of the medics asked.
She knew the rules. “I’m his wife.”
The chief rolled his eyes but didn’t rat her out.
She waited for them to load the gurney into the ambulance, then got inside. “I’m here, Colin.” Considering how high his temperature was, his hands were so very cold. She leaned over and kissed his forehead. “You’re okay.”
They made the forty-minute drive to Quincy without lights or sirens. And without incident. Colin was so out of it, he didn’t seem to realize he was in the small hull of an ambulance. The two paramedics wheeled Colin into the emergency room when they got to the hospital. Harlee tried to go with him, but a nurse told her that someone would come for her in a little while.
She went to the waiting room and called her father. He was a doctor and would walk her through this, assure her that Colin would be okay and that she hadn’t nearly killed him by sending him to an acupuncturist. When she couldn’t reach him, she left a message on his voice mail.
A short time later, a scowling Chief Shepard and his wife walked through the door. Harlee waved to them and they joined her.
“How’s it going, Mrs. Burke?” the chief asked.
“You can cut the sarcasm, Rhys,” Maddy admonished, and directed herself at Harlee, whispering, “I’m glad you lied. Poor Colin. Rhys thinks he has the flu. Apparently there’s a particularly virulent bug going around. Colin is the fourth person in the county who has had to be hospitalized.”
“But everyone survived, right?” Harlee asked.
“Oh yeah,” Maddy said. “Colin is a big, strong man. This is the kind of flu that’s mostly dangerous to old people and young children.”
“And pregnant women,” Rhys piped in. Maddy stared daggers at him, and he stared right back.
“Have they come out yet to let you know what’s going on?” she asked Harlee.
“Not yet.”
“It’s a good thing you were there with him. Otherwise no one might’ve realized that he was sick until he failed to show up for work.”
Harlee nodded. She wondered if Rhys had told Maddy about the acupuncture and the claustrophobia. Colin would be upset if a lot of people knew. He guarded his privacy. And despite how unassuming he was, Colin was sort of a macho guy. That’s something she’d learned very quickly about him. He had a wariness and toughness that made her think of a street fighter.
She wanted to tell Maddy that they didn’t have to wait. But it seemed presumptuous, given that Maddy had known Colin longer than Harlee. Still, she could tell that her husband was concerned about her catching something.
“If you guys want to go, I could call you and give you updates. All three of us don’t need to be here,” she said.
“How you planning to get home, Mrs. Burke?”
She’d forgotten that she didn’t have a car. Before she could reply, a man in scrubs with a stethoscope around his neck came out and quickly perused the waiting room. Besides them, there was only an African-American family seated.
“Are you Mrs. Burke?” He addressed her, and she caught Rhys doing the eye-roll thing again.
“Yes,” she said, sending the police chief a death glare, silently warning him:
Sell me down the river and I will cut you. Screw HIPAA.
“Are you the doctor?”
He nodded and held out his hand. “Rick Morgan.” Dr. Morgan joined them on one of the faux-leather beam seats that killed Harlee’s back and made her butt sore. “Colin’s got a severe case of the flu and a lower-respiratory-tract infection. We’ve given him amoxicillin, made him as comfortable as possible, and want to keep him at least overnight.”
“But he’ll recover, right?” Harlee knew that a lower-respiratory-tract infection was basically pneumonia. She wasn’t a doctor’s daughter for nothing.
“He’s a healthy young man. As long as he responds to the antibiotics, he should be feeling much better in a few days.”
“I’d like to see him,” she said.
“Me too,” Maddy said, adding, “I’m a friend of the family.”
Rhys mumbled something that sounded a lot like an expletive. And Maddy shot him a murderous glare.
The doctor took one look at Maddy’s rounded belly and gave Rhys a commiserating smile. “I think it would be best for just Mrs. Burke to visit with him.” He turned to Harlee. “They’re admitting him right now, but as soon as he’s settled into a room, someone will come get you.”
When the doctor left, Harlee told Rhys and Maddy, “You guys shouldn’t wait. I’ll stay the night here with Colin.”
“That’s nuts,” Maddy said. “We’ll wait until you’ve checked on him and then we’ll take you home.”
“I don’t want him to be alone,” she said, concerned that the hubbub of the busy hospital might trigger Colin’s demophobia.
“That’s very nice of you, Harlee,” Rhys said. “But Colin will probably sleep through the night. He won’t even know you’re here. Go home, get a comfortable night’s sleep, and come back first thing in the morning.”
“I’ll be fine,” she argued. “They might even have a cot they can put in the room.”
“You sure?” Maddy asked.
“Positive.” They exchanged cell phone numbers and left with the promise that Harlee would keep them abreast of Colin’s condition and would call when she needed a ride. They’d also take care of Max in the interim.
Subsequently, a hospital volunteer came to escort her to Colin’s room. The short-stay unit was next to the intensive care unit, which was next to orthopedics. All on the second floor. It was a small country hospital to be sure. Harlee’s father worked at Alta Bates in Oakland, which was ten times the size.
At least Colin had a single room. Although barely large enough for a hospital bed, table, and a narrow chair, which held his neatly folded clothes, she knew he would be glad for the privacy. Sound asleep, he took in shallow breaths as he struggled to draw in air. As big and strong as he was, he looked vulnerable lying there. She reached for him and then thought better of it. He needed to rest.
Instead, Harlee grabbed the small plastic pitcher from the table and went in search of ice.
By the time she got back, Colin had come awake, staring at the wall, bleary eyed, seemingly trying to get a fix on where he was.
“Hey.” She returned the pitcher to the table and took his hand. “Welcome back. You’re in the hospital.”
“Yeah,” he said, struggling to sit up. “I think they told me I have a lung infection. But maybe I dreamt that.”
“Nope. You have a bad flu, complicated by pneumonia.” She gently pushed him back down. “You want something to drink?”
“How come you’re here?” He tried to elevate the top of the bed but couldn’t find the remote, so she did it for him.
“I came with you in the ambulance. You don’t remember?”
“I think so. It’s a little hazy.”
“Maddy and Rhys came too . . . in their car,” she said, brushing hair away from his face. “They’re worried about you. But Rhys was concerned about the baby. You’re probably pretty contagious.”
“Why didn’t you go home with them?”
“I thought you should have company.” She went into the closet-sized bathroom, where she filled the pitcher with water and poured him a glass, feeding it to him from a straw. “Thirsty?”
“Yeah,” he said, draining the cup. “My mouth feels like someone jammed it with cotton.”
“I’ll get you some juice in a few minutes.”
“You should’ve gone home, Harlee.”
“You’ll be happy I stayed. I used to be a candy striper.”
“Really? You still have the uniform?” He lifted his brows suggestively.
She figured he must be delirious to flirt with her so overtly, because he’d never done it before. Just that one, mind-blowing kiss and a lot of heated gazes. He made room so she could scoot onto the edge of the bed.
“By the way, this”—she waved her hand over him in the hospital bed—“has nothing to do with acupuncture. You said the acupuncturist tried to kill you.”
“I did?” He let out a scratchy chuckle.
“Right before you went down for the count,” she said. “And what’s this about you getting knocked over the head a while back? One of the paramedics told me about it.”
He pulled the blanket tighter around him. She took the one folded at the bottom of the bed and tugged it up under his chin.
“When we first started rehabbing the Lumber Baron, I found a meth lab in the basement,” Colin said. “The owner wanted his stash back. Unfortunately, he believed that I was standing in the way of that happening, so he bashed me over the head with a tree branch.”
“Oh my God. You could’ve been killed. Was he ever caught?”
Colin’s eyes fluttered closed. “Yeah. Rhys shot him.”
Dead?
she wondered. But Colin was dozing off and she wanted him to rest. She started to move away, but he grabbed her hand. Then he lifted the blanket and pulled her under.
“Sleep,” he said, fitting against her like a spoon.
Chapter 12
I
t took Colin two weeks to recover and even still he wasn’t 100 percent. But he’d only had to spend one night in the hospital. The next day, Rhys had picked him and Harlee up and he’d convalesced in his own bed.
Harlee had spent the entire time fussing over him, the nurturing so alien he didn’t quite know how to respond. Even though Fiona had hovered when Colin had first gotten out of Donovan, the outside world was such a foreign place that he was constantly on guard, never letting anyone, even the people he loved, too close.
Ever since Della’s book came out, furniture sales had gone crazy. Harlee had taken over the business, checking his email and website daily for orders and methodically keeping his books. The woman couldn’t balance her own checkbook, but he noticed she was meticulous with his. Griffin came regularly to help her package up heavy pieces for FedEx and UPS, which trekked up and down Colin’s driveway so many times, he’d lost track. He wasn’t thrilled about having Griffin in his space, spending so much time with Harlee, not to mention making Colin feel like an invalid because he couldn’t get out of bed.
But he reminded himself to be grateful. Like Griffin, some of the other townsfolk pitched in. Emily brought soups and her famous lasagna. Maddy kept him in books and magazines. Mariah made regular visits, commandeering his blender to make him the green smoothies he liked so much, while updating him on the house and Sophie’s progress. She was almost ready to pop. Darla showed up a couple times a week, to sit by his side, talk his ear off, and generally drive him crazy.
And one day it hit him like a two-ton bag of bricks. He had friends. By nature, Nugget was the kind of town that pulled together in times of crisis or need. The people here looked out for one another. Being this remote necessitated self-reliance. But as much as Colin had gone out of his way to avoid becoming part of the community, they’d taken him in anyway.
How betrayed would they feel when they found out the truth? They’d run him out of town with shotguns. That’s what they’d do. As generous as this town could be, it could also be a judgmental bitch. Colin had seen it firsthand when Nugget residents had tried to take down Maddy and Nate’s inn, fearful that it would turn the town into a tourist trap.
And Harlee? How would she feel? The answer was too screwed up to contemplate. So he tried not to. Instead, he dragged his ass out of bed, showered, dressed, and fired up the Vitamix. He took his smoothie with him into the office, where he emailed a few different designs for Emily and Clay’s kitchen.
He had a lot of catching up to do. The phone rang, Colin checked caller ID, and answered.
“Hi, Fiona.”
“Is it still snowing there?” she asked, and Colin looked outside the window.
“Not at the moment. Why?”
“I just want to make sure you’re still coming. You’re feeling better, right?”
“I’m feeling good and you know I’m coming,” he said. Colin had made the trip every Christmas since moving to Nugget.
“I hope so. I don’t like you driving on the slick roads.”
“In a week it could be sunny and dry.” Not likely, but if it eased Fiona’s mind . . .
She cleared her throat and said, “I don’t want you to go to the cemetery this year. You’ve paid your debt, Colin. Enough.”
“It’ll never be enough, Fiona. Never.”
“You know how I feel about this,” she said, and he did, because they’d been over it a million times. “What happened that night . . . It’s time to move on, Colin.”
“It doesn’t work that way, Fi. Look, let’s not do this. I’m looking forward to seeing you, Steve, and the kids. What should I get them, by the way?”
“Don’t worry about that,” she said. “Just get here in one piece.”
“I’ll call you before I leave.”
“Col,” she said, stopping him before he hung up. “I have a friend I want you to meet.”
He rested his forehead against his computer monitor. “No friends, Fiona.”
“She’s great, beautiful, and you’ll love her.”
“Not interested.”
“You’re never interested, Colin. It all goes back to the fact that you’re continuing to punish yourself. You deserve to have a good life, Col. To have companionship. Someone who’ll love you.”
“I’m seeing someone, all right? I’ve gotta go, Fiona.” And with that he hung up. He shouldn’t have told her that. First off, it wasn’t true. He didn’t know what Harlee and he were doing, but technically they weren’t seeing each other. He was pretty sure that involved dates—and sex. They weren’t having either. Secondly, Fiona would interrogate him until the cows came home.
“Come on, Max, let’s take a walk,” he called to the dog.
Max trotted out from underneath the desk, thumping his tail. Colin shrugged into his ski jacket, pulled a wool beanie over his head, and tugged on a pair of fingerless gloves. It was cold and he didn’t want to have a relapse. Tomorrow he was due back at work on Sophie and Mariah’s house.
Man and dog trudged up the driveway, then down the hill to Harlee’s house. But she wasn’t there. Probably went into town to hang out with Darla or to buy groceries, Colin decided, and headed home to his wood shop.
He was halfway up Grizzly Peak when he heard Harlee’s Pathfinder. He started back down, Max at his heels, but when he got to the top of her drive, he saw Harlee wasn’t alone. Griffin was helping her unload a Christmas tree from the top of the truck rack. While he pulled the tree down and stuck the base inside a stand, Harlee gathered up enough snow from the slushy remains, made a snowball, and threw it at Griffin. Griffin chased her, hurling his own snowball in retaliation. Too busy laughing, neither noticed Colin.
He stood there a few minutes, watching them carry the red fir pine through the front door. They looked good together. Too good. Colin turned around and went home.
Christmas passed in a blur of thunderstorms and white flurries. After suffering four days of cabin fever with her family, including a sniveling toddler, Harlee decided to make the pilgrimage to town and meet Darla at the barbershop. She took Max, her four-legged charge until Colin got home from LA, for a quick walk, hopped into her SUV, drove to town, and parked on the square.
Inside, Darla sat in Owen’s chair in front of the mirror, removing red and green ribbons from her hair. It looked to Harlee like they’d been woven in, which seemed like a lot of work just for Christmas. But she supposed Darla had plenty of time on her hands.
“Hey,” Darla said, standing up to buss Harlee on the cheek. “The fam finally gone?”
“Yes.” Harlee said. “I love ’em, but thank God. How was your mom and Sacramento?”
“Looking better every day.”
Harlee knew that business at the barbershop still hadn’t picked up. “It’s the holidays, Darla. People can’t afford haircuts. They’re tapped out from buying Christmas gifts.”
Darla tipped her head and crossed her arms over her chest. “Harlee, it’s the busiest time of year for a stylist, and you know it. I really thought the products would make the difference, get people in the door. Connie came in for layers a few days before Christmas. But since then, nada.”
Harlee started to give her a pep talk, but Darla stopped her. “I so don’t want to think about this right now.”
That was a sentiment Harlee could identify with, given her own issues. Although DataDate trucked along, generating roughly a new assignment every week, she was still broke, in debt, and her search for a newspaper job had netted exactly nothing.
“You want me to play with your hair?” Darla took out the last ribbon and pulled her hair back into a loose ponytail. Today it was plain old natural blond, the way Harlee liked Darla’s hair the best. “I could give you an updo or something.”
“Sure.” Harlee didn’t really want an updo, but maybe passersby would see her in the chair and think Darla had a booming clientele. Looking busy was everything when it came to marketing. Harlee had friends who wouldn’t step foot in a restaurant unless they couldn’t get a table.
Darla got out of the chair, cleaned it with a rag that smelled like alcohol, and motioned for Harlee to hop up. She scoured a pile of magazines in the waiting area and came back with a
People.
“What do you think of something like this?” She showed Harlee a picture of Zooey Deschanel in a modern-day chignon with bangs. “She looks like you.”
Harlee had been told before that she resembled the actress. “Okay.” The style really was quite nice, and conservative by Darla’s standards.
Darla got to work back-combing Harlee’s hair for volume. “When is Colin coming home?”
“I’m not sure,” she said.
He’d sent her a text to ask about Max, but that had been their only communication. Before he’d left, Colin had hastily dropped off the dog and a gift—a gorgeous jewelry box he’d made—barely saying a word. She’d sensed that he was anxious about going home.
The man could be such a mystery, but no doubt about it, Harlee had a thing for him. She’d never considered herself as having a type, but if you would’ve asked her two months ago, it would not have been Colin Burke. He was too quiet, too solitary, and too . . . well, mountain-mannish. The men she dated in the city had polish. They went to the best restaurants, drove Teslas, and subscribed to
Wired
magazine. And they would’ve had her naked by now.
But unlike those men, Colin was steady, real, and a million times more complicated. He was also a million times more detached.
“I had hoped he’d be here by tomorrow. In time for our New Year’s Eve bash,” Darla said. They were having drinks and bowling at the Ponderosa.
Darla reached for a bristle brush, when the bells chimed over the door. A woman Harlee had never seen before came in looking frazzled but well dressed. Everything from her supple leather handbag to her cashmere camel coat spoke money.
“Can you fix this?” she asked, taking off an angora beret. It looked like someone had gone to town on her hair with a machete.
Darla lifted her brows and asked mildly, “What happened?”
She let out a breath. “I’m a cutter.”
When Harlee quietly examined her for whatever knife or scissor marks she could find, the woman let out a wry laugh. “Just my hair.”
Darla stepped closer to get a better look at the damage. “I could cut it real short, or try to layer. But it’s pretty chopped.” She grimaced, because chopped didn’t begin to describe the woman’s hair.
“I’d prefer to keep some length,” she said, taking in her surroundings. “The lady over at the inn recommended you. I didn’t realize it was a barbershop.”
Apparently she’d missed the large red, white, and blue barber pole outside.
“We’re unisex,” Darla said.
The woman took off her coat and draped it over one of the waiting chairs. “Okay. Can you fit me in after her?” She nudged her chin at Harlee.
“Oh,” Harlee said, “we’re just playing. Let me check Darla’s appointment book.”
Darla glowered at her like she’d gone mad. But Harlee knew this kind of woman. Hell, in an earlier life, she’d been this kind of woman, and appearances meant everything. Camel Coat could be a regular if they played their cards right. So she ignored Darla’s dagger stares, walked over to the cash register, grabbed the iPad sitting there, and pretended to scroll through it. “Um, you don’t have anyone else coming in until two.”
The woman glanced at her watch, which Harlee was pretty sure was a Patek Philippe. “Is that enough time?”
Darla slanted Harlee another WTF look and waved the lady into the chair. “I think so. I’m Darla, by the way, and this is my trusted assistant, Harlee.” Again with the look.
“Samantha,” she said.
Darla wrapped a cape around Samantha and played with her trashed hair in the mirror, sifting her fingers through the woman’s auburn locks and weighing them in the palm of her hand. “This is what I’m thinking, Samantha.”
“Sam. Everyone calls me Sam.”
“Okay, Sam.” Darla pulled Samantha’s hair to above her chin. “I’d take it to about here.” “I’m thinking choppy bob. You good with that?”
Sam pulled a face. “Do I have a choice?”
“No.” Darla shook her head. “Not really.”
“All right. Go for it.”
Darla walked her to the shampoo bowl while Harlee tried to get a closer look at the designer name on Sam’s purse. Prada. Harlee happened to know that her shoes were Christian Louboutin—the red soles gave them away—and retailed for nine hundred bucks at Barneys.
“How do you know Maddy at the Lumber Baron?” Harlee asked.
“I’m staying there,” she said. “I got off the interstate to find a ladies’ room and there it was. Such a charming place.”
“Where you headed?” Harlee tried to look receptionist-like, straightening magazines and flitting around the room as if there were a million details to see to in Nugget’s most prominent salon.
Look at us, so professional.
“I don’t know yet,” she said as Darla twisted a towel around Sam’s wet hair. “Any ideas?”
Harlee and Darla stopped to see if the woman was joking.
“Christmas Day I got in my car to go to a wedding and just kept driving.”
“Where was the wedding?” Harlee asked.
“New York City.” She said it so nonchalantly, her eyes slightly glazed, that Harlee thought she might be a little cuckoo. “It’s actually a straight shot—2,786 miles. I clocked it. The roads got a little dicey in Illinois and Nebraska—black ice. But everything was so crisp. Fresh. And the people in Wyoming . . . salt of the earth.”
“You didn’t know where you were going?” Harlee asked.
“Nope.”
Darla caught Harlee’s eye as if to say
“Is this woman messing with our heads?”
because that’s like a forty-hour drive to make on the spur of the moment with no destination in mind.
“But you stopped along the way, right?” Darla began cutting her hair.