“I love it.”
“Are you planning on staying?”
“Yes.”
I nodded my head. “Have you found a place to live?”
“Yes.”
“A house?”
“Yes, on land in the country. No red barn, though, like yours.”
“That’s great, it really is. You always wanted to live in the country.” He had talked about it at length. He wanted to get married, have kids, be a doctor, and live in the country. He had never wavered.
I wanted an education and a pile of money in savings so I would never again have to worry about whether or not I had enough cash and a big-enough coupon to buy macaroni and cheese. I wanted to become someone who didn’t have to fake being courageous and strong. I wanted to become someone who didn’t come from a scary trailer and had to hide in an apple orchard.
But I had wanted Jace most of all.
“I like having land to walk on.” His fingers, those capable fingers that took care of countless people, in countless critical situations, tapped his coffee cup. “After I operate during the day, or sew someone up, get someone through a traumatic event, I always thought it would be good to come home to a place in the country where there are sunrises and sunsets you can see, uninterrupted land in every direction, nature, animals, and a close-up view of the seasons.”
“It’s ironic, isn’t it? Here we are, in the country, years after we first met, sitting in a house my dad owned.”
“I like this.” He smiled.
“You like it?” I chuckled.
“I do. I like that we’ve met up again, Allie.”
I did, too. Even though nothing would, or could, come of it. “It’s odd that we’re talking like we’ve been together . . .” I stopped and choked back those years and tears. “I mean, not that we’re together, together as in a couple”—
oh, be quiet—
“I mean, we’re talking as we’ve always talked, and that’s . . . surprising.”
He leaned forward, so close, too close, his elbows on his knees, and my breath caught. “It’s always been like this between us. Why would it be different now?”
“Because—” I pulled back my hair, my hands jittery. “Because we’re not who we used to be. We’re not us.”
“We are us. We’re different people than who we were. But that doesn’t mean that our basic personalities have changed. You’ve recently been kicked by a menopausal horse and you fall through ladders, and I deal with a lot of blood and guts, but it’s still us.”
He smiled, a relaxed smile, his face so lovable to me, so familiar and yet different. The years had made him even more appealing, and I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to wrap my arms around him and kiss him that first day in the hospital, and I still did, preferably with my heels hooked around his back . . .
“I’m still Jace, you’re still Allie.”
“Yes, you’re the Jace who can talk a young man who is high on something into getting care and help, who can handle any emergency, and look good doing it.” I blushed. I had not meant to let that last part pop out.
He grinned. “Well, being handsome is the most important thing when I’ve got my hands in someone’s chest cavity. I’m sure it’s most important to the patient, too. Whenever someone’s been in an accident, the first thing they yell is, ‘Get me the best-looking doctor you can.’ ”
Jace had always had a wicked sense of humor. Tough face, and then he’d crack a joke. “I’m sure your handsomeness is what you think of every minute when you’re sticking a tube down someone’s throat.”
“Oh yes,” he said, his voice deep. “My rampant beauty. Is my hair brushed? What about my shirt? Is it ironed perfectly?”
We laughed together. Jace was the least vain person I’d ever met. He’d shower, dry his black hair with a towel, and he was done. We talked and chatted, drank more coffee. I pushed out all of the trepidation I had felt about seeing him, and I enjoyed him, every single minute of it.
“One more thing, Allie.”
“Oh no. What is it? You have a harem. You’ve grown a tail. You’re moving to Swaziland to learn a new language.”
“No harem. One woman is perfect for me. I don’t think I have a tail. No move to Swaziland.” He smiled again, and I could not look away from him. We sat where we were, everything else gone, the old house receding, the bad memories, my rage at my dad . . . and I tried to restrain myself from jumping on him.
“I told you that I bought a place.”
“Oh yes.” I shook my head and tried to cool my lusty thoughts. “Where did you buy your home?”
“I bought thirty acres and a house.”
“Wow.” I smiled. “Congratulations. That’s incredible. Good for you. You have what you’ve always wanted, then. Did it come with cats, dogs, horses, and an obnoxious rooster? Would you like my dogs, cats, and horses? Please take the rooster. I beg you.”
“I’ll take them. My house didn’t come with any animals. There’s a bridge over a stream, the house has a hot tub, and there’s also part of an apple orchard on it, just like here.”
“Maybe you can teach me about apple trees, then.”
“I’ll learn and let you know.”
“Where is it?”
He clasped his hands together, his gaze not wavering. “Allie, I knew you were in Portland when I applied for the job here, then moved from New York. It was why I wanted to be here. I wanted to see you again. I was going to call you, but I’ve only been here a few weeks, and I wanted to move into my house and get settled before I did. I wanted to show you what kind of life I had, but honestly, I didn’t know that you were here in Schollton.”
“How could you? My dad only recently died. The property is in his name. He only bought it five years ago.” And why was it an issue?
“I didn’t research the property owners around me before I bought my land, I promise you that.”
“Of course you didn’t. Who does that? But what are you talking about?” My hands started to get cold.
“I looked around for quite a while, but then when I saw what it looked like out here, when I found the house, it was perfect, and I bought it.”
“Jace, where is your place?” My knees started to shake.
“Look out those windows.”
I looked out my front windows.
“Do you see that house on the hill?”
I nodded. The Craftsman-style home with the decks. Gorgeous architecture.
“That’s mine.”
Chapter Five
I stared at the urn, filled with my dad, functioning as a doorstop.
That probably wasn’t a respectful way to use my dad, but I needed to prop the door open in the second bedroom, and the urn was doing the job. In essence, then, my dad was currently opening a door. He had opened so few for me over the course of my life, so perhaps it was fitting that he do so now.
Anger and bitterness started creeping on in, so I put my hands on my legs and stood up—gingerly. My legs were still a bruised mess.
I took Bob and Margaret outside for a walk. Bob took off after a dastardly squirrel and Margaret followed, tongue wagging.
Spot the Cat and Marvin walked along the fence line together. They were friends. I would have to find them good homes. I would have to stop getting attached to all of them. That was hard when Bob and Margaret slept with me on the bed and both cats meowed at me as if we were friends having a normal conversation. When I meowed back, I knew I was losing it.
And what about Mr. Jezebel Rooster?
I took a deep breath. My dad’s animals sure were cute, even if he sure wasn’t.
My father had never liked animals. I had seen him kick two dogs. Yet these animals were obviously well cared for and personable. I didn’t get it.
I headed into the apple orchard and wandered among the trees. I wondered which tree it was that my dad had leaned against as he’d had his heart attack. I wondered how he’d felt. Was it instant? Did it take awhile to die? What did he think, staring up into those apple trees? Did he have regrets?
When I was a girl I used to steal apples out of an orchard near our trailer because there was often no food at home. I’d take some for dinner, for snacks, and to pack in my lunch bag. I brought two apples to school so my lunch bag would look as full as the other kids’ sacks. They would take out their sandwiches wrapped in plastic bags, fruit, two types of chips, cookies. Clearly their parents had lovingly packed their lunches.
I would take out two slices of bread with a thin layer of peanut butter
or
jelly—rarely did we have both at the same time—two apples, and crackers, if we had them. I looked forward to class holiday parties like other kids looked forward to Christmas, because of the cookies and cupcakes.
I knew there were free lunches at school for poor kids, but that would have required my dad to fill out paperwork, and he had refused to do it, yelling, “I am not going to take charity, you stupid girl. We don’t need it—now shut up!”
I was often hungry, but I didn’t want the other kids to know we were poor, either. He had rammed it into me that I was part of the problem of him not having money. He had rammed it into me that I was a burden, difficult, stupid, unwanted, and part of the conspiracy my mother had waged against him.
My dad always laughed at how many apples I could eat, but his laughter ridiculed me. I didn’t find it funny. Being hungry is never funny. He told me my face looked like the core of an apple.
Hello, apple-core face
. I never forgot that. He also said to me,
Your brain is about the size of apple seeds
.
I often went to sleep by myself in our trailer. My dad always said he was
Going out for a short while, be back before a bullet could pierce that there tree
. That meant he was going out drinking. He did that all the time. Money for beer, no money for food. The dark outside scared me, and I was usually freezing cold and hungry. I would grab my two blankets and settle in on the skinny bench in our trailer that served as my bed.
The outside noises—the rustling of an animal under our trailer, probably a raccoon, terrified me. Sometimes I’d hear people yelling at each other in other trailers. Cars backfired. People came in and out at odd hours. I always pulled the brown-haired doll with the yellow dress my mother made me close to my chest and went to sleep.
I moved back in with him when I was eleven, after my mom died, and he forgot my twelfth birthday. When I got home from school he was passed out on his bed, black hair back, scars prominent. I asked him where he got the scars one time and he shook me hard and told me never to ask again.
I made a “cake” for myself by slicing up apples in the orchard and piling them together on a paper plate like a layer cake. I sang myself “Happy Birthday,” thought of my mother, and cried the whole way through eating my cake. I was so lonely I couldn’t keep the apples down that day.
My dad sporadically remembered my other birthdays. One time he gave me a box of chocolates. He’d already eaten half of them.
If my dad had any loud and obnoxious friends over, I used to go to the orchard and carve the skins off apples to see how long a train I could make. I would hide in the apple trees if he was in a bad mood—cursing, lashing out at me—or if I needed to cry for my mother. I would carve faces into the apples—or boats, or dogs and cats. Apples entertained me.
I should have hated apples because of what they reminded me of, but I didn’t. They saved me. I ate them, I juggled them, and used them for throwing away my rage.
I reached up a hand and brushed the leaves of an apple tree on my dad’s property. The apples were beautiful—red, golden, light green.
I would miss them when I left.
My letter would have arrived.
She was a viper. She took advantage of her position. Seduction should not be a part of promotions.
The you-know-what would be hitting the fan.
It almost made me laugh.
“No, I will not go out to dinner with you tonight.”
Jace stood on my porch wearing a white shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots. He could not have looked hotter if he set himself on fire.
“Why not, Allie?” He smiled. If it were possible, I would have melted into goo.
“Because I don’t want to and I want to and I won’t go.” I slammed my teeth together. “That didn’t make sense.”
“Not much. Come out to dinner with me tonight and we’ll talk about it.”
“I’m your patient. Aren’t you supposed to keep a professional distance?”
“You’re my ex-girlfriend, and that overrides the patient-doctor relationship. Besides, our relationship, professionally speaking, is over because I’ve already sewn you up, plucked splinters out of your skin, and wrapped your ankle.”
His ex-girlfriend. That I was. Even the word
girlfriend
gave my heart a wallop.
It was about eleven in the morning. I had hobbled around to feed and take care of the horses. Bob chased his enemies, the squirrels, barking, and Margaret followed him as usual, tongue hanging out. Spot the Cat, came up and meowed at me and I meowed back like a fool. Spunky Joy’s head hung over Leroy’s neck and they were both happy to see their servant, me.
I had not gotten hit by a horse’s hoof. I had not fallen through a ladder. The day was young, but so far, so good. I had not showered yet, so had not gotten to the makeup point, and was wearing old jeans and a flannel shirt, my usual chic and glamorous attire, so different from who and what I used to be. Then Jace arrived at my door.
“Why can’t you show up in my life when I’m wearing something other than raggedy clothes and have brushed my hair?”
He smiled, rocking back on his heels. He was huge and huggable, darn him. “You look good to me.”
“I don’t look good to me. I think I smell like a horse. I need to check the lovely colors of various bruises on my body. Bruising adds a special shade of beauty.”
“I’ll take a look at your bruising.”
“You will not.”
I remembered Jace’s hands on both of my legs at the hospital. He was completely professional, but I thought I was going to burst into a ball of desire. His hands could still do that to me, after all these years. Still.
He smiled. “Ma’am, I think I should check out your legs.”
“Very funny, Jace.”
“Drop your pants.”
I laughed, despite my rebellious hair, despite my bruises and my stitches. “Don’t make me laugh. For some reason it makes my legs hurt.”
“If not dinner, how about breakfast?”
“No.” I grinned.
“We could sit at separate tables in a café.”
“No, again.” Oh, he was lovely.
“We could sit at separate ends of the café, and I won’t look at you.”
“No, a third time.” He reminded me of one of those he-man warriors in movies. “I’m going to read a Jane Austen book.”
“Bring it with you.”
“ No.”
“Okay, then we’ll do it the other way.”
“What other way?” He smelled luscious, too.
“We’ll have breakfast at my house.”
He took a few steps forward, then lifted me up into his arms and started walking out to his truck. “Just keep still, ma’am, and I’ll have you fed and watered in no time.”
“You can’t do this!” I laughed, my arm looped around his neck, our faces inches apart.
“Looks like I am, darlin’.”
I kicked my legs but it hurt. “Shoot. I can’t even kick you or my stitches will bust and my bruises will turn more purple or yucky green.”
“Hang tight, apple-lover lady.”
“I am an apple-lover lady. I think I’ll use it for my next ré-sum é . . .” I gave up. I wanted to give up, I knew that. I was having a hard time resisting him. The man is a force of nature. What he wants, he goes after.
“Don’t move your legs, and close your mouth so no more refusals come out. Bacon and eggs makes everything better.”
He put me in his truck, corralled the dogs back in the house, shut the door, and away we went.
I knew I should have gotten out of the truck.
I knew I should have protested.
Getting involved with Jace would end in no place right or good or happy. It would end in tears and loss, and Jace would get hurt if he knew the truth. I did not want to hurt Jace.
I went anyhow and I felt selfish for doing it.
I told myself to enjoy him for one more day.
One more day only.
I would get a job and move and he’d never have to know anything else, anyhow.