“Dr. B, we’re going to play,” Kalinda told him. “Can we take care of whatever you want later?”
“I’m here to give Cece a bathroom break.”
He turned to the little dog, who was already standing. Cece gazed at him adoringly, her brown poodle eyes bright with affection. As he reached for her, she angled toward him, butt first, in what Montana had explained was her “You can pick me up” position.
He reached under her chest and supported her rear as he lifted. She gave a little push against the bed, as if offering help.
“You weigh six pounds, kid,” he muttered. “I don’t need the help.”
Kalinda giggled. “She does that. She’s very polite.”
Polite or not, what he felt was her quivering excitement as she squirmed to get closer and bathe his face in dog kisses. Her tail thudded against his chest in a frantic, happy rhythm.
Reese glanced up. “She really likes you.”
“So I’ve been told. I’ll be back shortly.”
“Okay.”
Neither kid was paying attention to him anymore, which was how it should be.
He made a quick stop in his office to put Cece into her harness and leash, then carried her outside. He walked to an unused bit of lawn and set her down. She immediately began sniffing around, then peed.
Although he could probably take her back inside, he thought she might like to stretch her legs a little. Montana had brought her by relatively early that morning.
“Are you up to walking around the complex?” he asked.
Cece stared at him, her head tilted as if she were trying to understand. Her tail wagged.
They started down the sidewalk. His plan was to walk the perimeter, including the parking lots and garages. It would probably be close to a mile.
During his early-morning workouts he was careful to watch the news. Current events served as a distraction. But now, with the little dog prancing at his side, there was nothing to keep him from his thoughts.
Despite Fay’s excitement over her daughter’s improvement, he was cautious. She could still take a turn for the worse and there was nothing he could do to prevent it. This was not anything he would share with the emotionally fragile mother. Kalinda might truly be recovering and everything would be fine. Statistically that was the case, although his experience made him wary.
Cece stopped by a tree and sniffed intently. She squatted, peed a couple of drops, then looked at him with an expression that could only be described as satisfied.
“Telling them you were here?” he asked her.
She wagged her tail, then began walking again.
The late-morning air was warm, promising a hot afternoon. Summer in Fool’s Gold was beautiful with plenty of blue skies, and the mountains looming to the east were green.
They continued on their walk, Cece prancing beside him. His thoughts drifted to Montana.
There was no way to avoid what had happened between them. No way to gloss over the fact that he’d hurt her. He’d been stupid to think she wouldn’t notice the fundraiser. Given how much time they were spending together, of course she expected him to ask her.
He hadn’t meant to hurt her. He’d never had to worry much about a woman’s feelings before, he realized. The brief, temporary connections he usually made excluded emotions on both sides. There was mild interest, some conversation and sexual release. Little more.
Montana was different. He finally understood what it meant when people said someone had gotten under their skin. It was more than a cliché—it was a sensation. An ache, a need, an inability to forget or ignore.
He kept seeing her wounded expression, the pain in her eyes. Remembering that made him feel guilty, because he made it a point not to get close enough to wound anyone. He didn’t get involved for a reason. Some of it was because he was always moving on, and some of it was because he didn’t want to feel guilty.
He supposed the logical solution was to simply end things with her. To walk away, complete his time and leave. Simple. Clean. Honest.
But every time he thought about doing that, everything within him rebelled. How could he not spend time with her? Not only because she haunted him, but because of what she’d said while they were having lunch. She no longer saw his scars.
No one had ever done that before. People got used to them, considered them a part of him, but no one had been able to transcend them.
He’d always known she was special, but that simple statement had made him see she was more than that. More than he deserved. And to hurt her without reason, to cause her even a second’s worth of pain would be to violate some of the newfound good in his life.
“Complications,” he muttered.
Cece looked up at him and wagged her tail.
They made their way back to the side entrance, where they’d come down. As they approached the stairs, Cece stopped and assumed the “You can pick me up” position, then gave a little jump as he reached for her.
“You’re a smart little girl,” he said, holding her close.
She gave him a quick lick on the chin, then snuggled against his chest, her paws tucked against his arm, as if it would never occur to her that she would be dropped.
“Such trust.”
He took Cece to Kalinda’s room, thinking he would remove her harness there. As he walked toward the half-open door, he heard soft crying.
“Don’t,” Reese pleaded. “Don’t cry.”
“I don’t want to be like this.”
“They’re just burns.”
Simon stopped, still out of sight but able to hear.
“They’re horrible and they hurt and I’m ugly. I’ll be ugly forever.” The cries got louder and harder. “No one will ever like me. No boy will ask me out. I’ll never get married.”
Simon couldn’t begin to imagine how uncomfortable Reese must feel. He was just about to walk into the room to see if he could help when the boy spoke.
“You’re not ugly and you’ll have lots of friends. Tell you what. If nobody asks you to marry him and you still want to get married, I’ll do it. We can get married.”
“You mean that?”
“Sure. Pinkie promise.”
There was a shuffling sound.
Simon stepped in and saw Kalinda smiling through her tears.
As easily as that, he thought. Because she was just like Cece. She believed and trusted that no one would deliberately hurt her.
He found himself wanting to make sure that trust wasn’t broken. That she would grow up the way Montana had—safe in a world that took care of her.
MONTANA SAT ON THE LAWN at Max’s. The dogs and the new puppies were busy with a complicated game of play that involved jumping over Montana. Or in the case of the puppies, scrambling.
She lay on the warm grass, staring up at the sky, trying to figure out her life. In the past few weeks, a lot of things had disrupted her simple plans.
Max came out of the house and started toward her.
She sat up and studied her boss, taking in his long, easy stride and rugged good looks. He must have been irresistible when he was younger, she thought. Tall and lean and probably more than a little dangerous. Had he really swept her mother off her feet? And if he had, why had Denise chosen to stay in Fool’s Gold and marry Ralph Hendrix?
Not that she was sorry. If her mother had made different choices, none of her children would have been born.
Montana still hadn’t found a way to bring up the issue of her mother. Somehow starting a conversation with her boss by saying, “So, my mom has ‘Max’ tattooed on her hip. Is that you?” didn’t seem to be the shortest road to employee of the month. There was also the not-so-insignificant detail of not being sure she wanted to know any more details.
Max stepped into the fenced enclosure. All the dogs ran toward him, begging for attention. The puppies scrambled after, not sure what the excitement was about, but wanting to be in the middle of it.
Max crouched down and petted as many as he could reach. “You have a delivery.”
“A package? I didn’t order anything.”
“It’s not a package, it’s flowers. Based on the size of them, he must have really screwed up.”
Flowers? She felt herself getting all gooey inside, which was dumb. Yes, the flowers were probably from Simon. He was the only man in her life. But as she had recently learned, theirs was a one-way relationship. While sending flowers was a lovely gesture, it didn’t change reality.
She scrambled to her feet. “What are you talking about? What does size have to do with it?”
Her boss laughed. “Honey, if we’re talking about a guy, size always matters. The bigger the screw up, the bigger the arrangement. Based on the size of these, I would guess he seriously injured a family member.”
“Of course he didn’t,” she said, even as she went through the gate and carefully closed it behind her. She hurried toward the house, which also doubled as Max’s office.
She let herself in the back door. The flowers were in the kitchen. The display was as big as Max had indicated. The vase was at least eighteen inches high with a spray of exotic blossoms reaching toward the ceiling.
She recognized a couple of different kinds of orchids, but after that got completely lost. Her mother would probably know what everything was. The flowers were bright and fresh, with a delicate fragrance that drew her closer. When she spotted the card, she reached for it.
She hesitated before opening the envelope, telling herself there was nothing he could say that would change anything. But she opened it anyway and read the note.
“I’m not very good at this. I’m sorry.”
She frowned at the card, not sure what he meant. He was sorry he wasn’t very good at whatever he was talking about. Or maybe he was saying, “I’m not very good at this and I’m sorry, but it’s over.”
“I would have thought the flowers would’ve made you happy,” Max said.
She held out the card. “You’re a guy, tell me what this means.”
“I don’t have my reading glasses. Tell me what it says and I’ll tell you what it means.”
She read the short message. “And?”
“I haven’t a clue. What did you two fight about?”
“We didn’t fight. It wasn’t like that. I just…” She sighed. “I know he’s leaving. I know this is temporary. I made the mistake of thinking that while he was here, we had an actual relationship. He doesn’t think that.”
“How do you know?”
She told him about the fundraiser and how it had been apparent that Simon had no intention of asking her to accompany him.
“Events like that are exactly what couples go to together. It’s a date thing. If he cared about me at all, he would’ve asked me. I’m an idiot.”
“You’re a lot of things, Montana, but idiot isn’t one of them. From what you’ve told me about this guy, I’d say he has it bad. If he didn’t care about you, why would he apologize? Maybe not asking you to the fundraiser is about him.”
Which was sort of what Nevada had said, she thought, getting irritated at the people around her.
“Why are you taking his side?”
Max walked over to her and put his arm around her, then he kissed the top of her head. “We have officially exceeded my ability to give advice on your love life. I’m not taking his side. I’m suggesting that before you assume he’s a jerk, find out why he didn’t ask you.”
Her boss walked out of the kitchen, leaving her alone with a huge arrangement of flowers and a small, cryptic card. Neither of which offered any answers.
MONTANA WAS FORCED to put the vase of flowers on the floor of her backseat. Even then the very tips of the stems brushed against the ceiling. The flowers dominated her tiny dining alcove as the scent drifted through her small house.
She couldn’t seem to eat much at dinner and spent a restless hour trying to rearrange her closet. A foolish attempt when her mind was elsewhere, wrestling with the problem of Simon.
At seven-thirty, she heard a knock on the door.
She didn’t have to answer it to know who was there. As she approached the door, she still wasn’t sure what she was going to say or how she was going to act.
Simon stood on her porch, dark circles under his eyes. He looked tired. No, that wasn’t right, he looked weary. She found herself wanting to pull him inside and hold him, as if she could somehow pass her strength on to him and heal him.
“I hate events like this,” he began. “They all do it, hold a fundraiser, and I’m the guest of honor. Everyone wants to talk to me. But I’m not the kind of guy who has funny stories appropriate for a cocktail party, and it’s not the kind of place where it’s appropriate for me to discuss the details of my work. I didn’t ask you, because I hate going, not because I wanted to hurt you.”
She stepped back to let him in. He moved past her into the living room, then turned to face her.
“I don’t do this,” he continued. “I don’t get involved. But I’ve never wanted anyone as much as I want you. It started out as chemistry, pure sexual attraction. I don’t even know what to call it. But it’s different now. It’s bigger and I can’t control it and I can’t not be with you.”
She stared at him, trying to take in all that he had said. For a powerful man who changed lives with the magic of his hands, he looked surprisingly vulnerable. Exposed. As if she could see all of him and he knew and he worried.
With every romantic relationship she’d ever had, she’d worried about not being enough. Had been told she wasn’t enough, time after time. Here was Simon—wonderful and kind and everything a woman could want—and he worried about the same thing. Not being enough. How was she supposed to keep from loving him?