The world looked like a snow globe.

She’d opened the drapes and turned out the lights to give him a view of the falling snow. Then she stood beside him. Luke should have thought it through, but he didn’t. He grasped her hand, and his heart thudded when she didn’t pull away.

He wished he could find out if her lips were as sweet as he remembered, if her curves were as soft.

But she astonished him by saying, “I want to hate you.”

“I thought you already did.”

“I did. But now I don’t, and I want to again.”

“Why?”

She leaned over and kissed him on the mouth. Not a tentative kiss, but the kiss of a lover who knows her man.

“I shouldn’t …” she whispered.

“But I want it, too.”

“That’s exactly what’s wrong,” she said. “Sex between us was always good. Everything else was the problem.”

“We could talk about it, Bri.”

“Why? It’s over.”

“Not quite.” Then he drew her into a deep, hungry kiss.

Conard County: The Next Generation!

Snowstorm
Confessions
Rachel Lee

www.millsandboon.co.uk

RACHEL LEE was hooked on writing by the age of twelve and practiced her craft as she moved from place to place all over the United States. This New York Times bestselling author now resides in Florida and has the joy of writing full-time.

MILLS & BOON

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To Allison Carroll, for her infinite patience and kindness

Contents

Cover

Excerpt

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Extract

Copyright

Chapter 1

“Luke!”

Brianna Cole stared, stunned, at the last man on earth she expected to see standing at her front door. Icy winter air, defying the spring season, swirled around her, but she hardly noticed. Luke Masters, her ex-husband, stood there with smiling gray eyes she remembered all too well. His thick parka hung open despite the cold, showing her he still pretty much dressed like a lumberjack: plaid wool shirt, jeans and work boots. Why wasn’t he back at their old place in Chicago? What was he doing in Conard County?

“Hi, Bri,” he said pleasantly enough.

“What are you doing here?” Shock rapidly gave way to a sick feeling, an urge to deny what she was seeing and a swamp of memories she never wanted to think about again. How dare he?

“Well, I’m on a project. I’ll be around for a few weeks, and I thought it would be better for you to find out this way. Besides, I thought we might catch up.”

Catch up? The idea astonished her. They had parted three years ago for a lot of very good reasons. Well, they’d started parting ways before that, but the divorce had been finalized three years ago. Unfortunately, finalizing a divorce didn’t end the pain. “Why?”

“Because there was a time we used to be best friends.”

What kind of excuse was that? she wondered. Suddenly becoming aware of the frigid air, she realized she had to close the door. Either invite him in or send him on his way, but as she heard her heat kick on, she considered more practical matters. Thinking of the heat at least interrupted the emotional tsunami the sight of him had caused. “Come in,” she said irritably. “But don’t get comfortable.”

He didn’t comment on her ungracious invitation, merely stamped his feet a couple times to shake off any remaining snow, then stepped inside.

She closed the door behind him. The chill from outside seemed to reach her and she hugged herself, rubbing her arms. The forced-air heat blasted away but didn’t seem to warm her.

He looked good, from what she could see. Time hadn’t changed him one bit, not even adding threads of gray to his dark hair. Bitterness filled her mouth. She’d always suspected that their divorce hadn’t troubled him as much as it had her. He looked fit, healthy and as self-assured as ever. On the other hand, upset had cost her ten pounds she hadn’t been able to put back on, and sleepless nights had made her look like a raccoon for over a year. “This is wrong,” she said. “On so many levels.”

“Why? We used to be married. I’m in town. I just wanted a few minutes to see how you’re doing.”

“Right.” She pointed to her shabby living room and told him to sit wherever. Then, because she was cold, she went to get some coffee. Then, because she wasn’t naturally rude, she poured a mug for him.

Ten minutes, she thought. I can handle this for ten minutes. That didn’t make her feel any better. All of a sudden she was staring into a yawning abyss of old pain and desire she didn’t want to freshen.

Squaring her shoulders, she walked back to the man who had twisted her heart into knots and then torn it apart.

She hoped she wasn’t being stupid.

* * *

The night outside began to sprinkle big white flakes of snow, just a dusting, but the flakes glittered like jewels under the streetlights. Spring was late this year.

Jack Milkin stood three doors down from Brianna’s house. He liked Brianna. She was one of the few people who seemed to go out of her way to notice him and be nice to him. Mostly he felt invisible, but not when she was around. He’d been interested in her for a long time, but was always reluctant to ask her out. He knew she didn’t date much. There’d been a few guys she had gone out with but it never lasted.

Jack figured he could make it last if she would just let him try.

So he’d been trying to learn everything he could about her so he could please her. Soon, he had promised himself, he would ask her out for a movie or dinner. Some safe little date. If she said yes, then he’d set about proving just how good he could be for her. If she didn’t say yes, well, he’d find another way.

But now a strange man had just been invited into her house. A wrinkle. Competition? A possible threat? He thought he knew nearly everything about her, but she had seemed to know this guy, a guy who wasn’t on his list of things he knew about Bri.

He approached her house at last, and when he was sure no one could see, he climbed the big old tree and then pushed through her attic vent. From up here, he could see what he needed to see and hear what he needed to hear.

The attic was empty, but it was not too cold. Heat from the house seeped up here. She needed more insulation on the floor, and he’d been meaning to offer to put it in.

Being quiet as a mouse, he eased toward the voices that drifted up to him. A minute later he was facedown on the attic flooring, looking through a tiny hole he had put there. One for each room. Stretched out, he could watch Bri. He could hear Bri.

He could find out everything about her life and all the ways he could please her.

* * *

Bri faced Luke in the living room. Naturally he’d settled on the sofa. That was his expansive style. She took the Boston rocker, safely across from him. The silence that ensued would have been funny if it hadn’t been so tense. He’d wanted to talk, and now had nothing to say. She couldn’t think of anything, either. She’d never expected to see him again, and she didn’t like the way old hurts were rising in her.

Even less did she like realizing that she still found him attractive. Three years and a lot of pain hadn’t changed that at all. Her hands curled until her nails bit into her palms. This was insane.

“I was asked,” he said finally, “to evaluate the land that was purchased for a ski resort. Take a look at what problems we might face.”

“That’s going to be hard under all this snow.”

“Some of it will be.” He’d been sitting with his arms outflung, one on the arm of the couch, the other along its back. Now he rubbed his chin, sweeping her with his gray eyes.

“You’re a little thinner,” he remarked.

She battled an urge to tell him he had no right to comment on her appearance. None at all. Instead she chose to change the topic. Letting him get under her skin would be a mistake. “There’s been talk of a ski resort forever. It hasn’t happened yet. The land just keeps getting resold. Any reason to think it’s going to be different this time?”

At that he smiled faintly. “Well, I’m on the job.”

It was an old joke he’d always made, but now bitterness made her wonder if it was a joke at all. Maybe his ego really was that big. “Oh?”

He gave a slight shrug. “I’m checking it out, is all.”

“It’ll die like it always does. The county doesn’t have the money to expand the airport to handle more than a few executive jets.”

“The company I’m working for is planning on doing the airport as well.”

The county could use the jobs and the tourist income. It would change things around here, although whether for the good remained to be seen. But she was in no mood to be thinking about the entire county. All she could think about was that if this project went ahead, Luke would be around for months, if not a year or more.

Longer than he’d been around at any point in their marriage. Wow. Didn’t that say everything?

“How are you doing?” he asked after a moment.

“Fine.” Short and unrevealing. What was he expecting? A heart-to-heart?

“Still in nursing?”

“Of course.”

He nodded. “You always loved working with patients.”

Nothing to say to that, either. She was definitely not enjoying the tension.

A sound from the attic above caught her attention and she looked up. “Another raccoon?” she said more to herself than him.

“Want me to look?”

“No. I have someone who takes care of that for me.” She couldn’t climb ladders because she had a bad knee. Wrapping it properly allowed her to work, but climbing? Not since she’d been knocked off her bicycle by a careless motorist.

“Is it a common problem? Raccoons in the attic?”

“It happened last fall. Jack, the guy who takes care of it for me, put up some chicken wire to keep them out, but it might have worked loose.”

“Raccoons are pretty smart. They could figure it out.”

“Probably.” This conversation was pointless. He must have come for some reason other than to warn her that he’d be around. “Luke, what’s the real purpose of this visit? Not to talk about raccoons.”

He rose from the couch, and she recognized that they were about to get to the meat of the matter. He could never hold still while discussing something important. Funny that she remembered him so well when she had spent so long trying to forget him.

“As much as it hurt when you left me, I can live with it. What I can’t live with, even after all this time, is you thinking I’m a liar and a cheat.” He faced her, and his gray eyes seemed to flame. “I never lied to you and I never cheated on you.”

He’d said that before. “You think I want to beat this horse all over again?” she demanded, rising to her feet. “It’s dead. It’s in the past. We went our separate ways.”

“Because you believed I lied to you. That I cheated. And that matters to me.”

God. How was she supposed to handle this? Old hurts were returning, opening wounds she had thought healed. All because...because why? “What difference does it make whether I believe you now?”

“It does.”

Bald, uncompromising, no excuses or wiggle room.

“Okay. Whatever. You didn’t lie and you didn’t cheat. Feel better?”

“Why don’t you try telling me the truth? You don’t believe that.”

Her hands had begun to ache from being clenched for so long. She tried putting them on her hips to ease them. Man, she could barely stand to look at him right now, as refreshed emotional agony tore into her. “Just leave, Luke. There’s no point rehashing this. You said you didn’t do it back then. You say now that you didn’t do it. You can’t prove it. And I’m the one who got the phone call telling me otherwise.”

“And you believed a woman you barely knew over me. Damn that Barbara.”

“How did you know it was Barbara?” She leaped on the name as if it were evidence. “I didn’t tell you who called.”

“She did. Eventually. When she realized I wasn’t going to rebound into her arms after all. You could say the only pleasure she got out of her little escapade was knowing that she’d killed our marriage.”

Something else burst out of her then, maybe the most important thing of all. She didn’t know, but it rose to the surface and exploded. “You were never home. We didn’t have a marriage, we had an occasional affair!”

He froze. Despite herself she looked at him and saw his face shutter as if it had turned to steel.

“I see,” he said quietly. “I won’t bother you again.”

She listened to him leave, standing frozen herself. Where had that come from? Was it as true as it had felt when it burst out of her? Had she been harboring that kind of resentment without knowing it?

She realized she was trembling and forced herself to move stiffly to the kitchen. She hadn’t had supper yet, and the tension and anger had drained her. She had to eat. She had to carry on. Her life was here now, among family and friends, not in some big city where she’d felt so lonely sometimes when Luke was away. She never really felt lonely anymore.

But looking back, she remembered how badly she had ached every time he left on another trip. She’d never gotten used to it. So maybe she’d been a fool to marry him in the first place. His absences had been built in, but she’d faced them with so much confidence, sure she could handle them.

Time had proved her wrong. Whether he had cheated or not, they had probably been doomed anyway.

She managed to make a chicken sandwich on melba rye bread, then poured herself fresh coffee before sitting at the kitchen table. As she lifted the sandwich, she realized she was still shaking.

She needed someone. Someone to talk to and let her vent. Twisting on her seat, she reached for the wall phone and called Diane. Her best buddy. The one who shared both good times and bad.

Diane said she’d be right over. Help was on the way.

* * *

Jack crawled out of the attic, content. The man was an ex who had cheated on her. No threat there. And tomorrow or the next day, Bri would call him to get rid of the raccoon. How long it took him to catch the animal would depend on whether he could afford to stay away for a few days or a week. Once he “caught” the animal, he couldn’t risk making noise up here for a while. Time would tell.

In the meantime, he was sure he could let her talk to her best friend without listening in. Diane would be on his side, after all, wanting only what was best for Bri.

Jack closed up the attic, checked to make sure it was safe, then shinnied down the tree. Amazing what you could learn just by listening. He hoped that soon he’d have a chance to comfort Bri.

But first, maybe, it would be best to ensure that her ex didn’t hang around for long. Better safe than sorry.

* * *

Luke climbed into his truck and nearly skidded on the snow and ice as he pulled away. Had he been out of his ever-loving mind? What had made him think she would listen to him? She certainly hadn’t listened to him when he’d denied her accusations the first time.

Damn, she still had those witchy green eyes, that heart-shaped face, although it had lost some of its softness to the years. Chiseled cheekbones showed now. But her brown hair still looked as silky as ever. In short, except for the chaos between them, he’d still think she was the most beautiful woman on the planet.

But he’d seen inside that woman, and what he’d found there hadn’t been all that beautiful. Not toward the end. Not when she’d refused to trust him or his honesty.

And what was that crap about him being gone all the time? She’d known that before they married. She’d refused his every attempt to get her to travel with him because she wanted to keep nursing. Her job had mattered more to her than being with him. That was a two-way street.

So how dare she throw that up at him? Especially at this late date?

He’d almost convinced himself yet again that the marriage had been a huge mistake by the time he got back to the crusty motel on the edge of town. He’d spent time in worse accommodations over the years, and with fewer amenities, as construction manager for DEL Inc. He barely noticed his surroundings as he entered the room, paused to wash his face, then set out again for the truck stop across the highway.

He needed to eat. He hadn’t eaten during his entire trip to this godforsaken town in the middle of nowhere. Nerves about seeing Bri again? Maybe.

The part of him that never stopped working had already scanned the town. Turning this place into a tourist resort was going to take some big bucks. The basics of the charm were there, but they needed a whole lot of touching up to make this the kind of place people with money would want to spend a few weeks skiing and hiking. Yeah, they would put a lot of good stuff out at the resort, but people often wanted to wander into town.

Conard City spoke of older times. That would help. Some sprucing up would seal its charm, make people feel they’d come to a place out of time. But boy, it was going to take some sprucing.

But first he had to get the lay of the land up in the mountains, figure out if they’d run into a few surprises about how much it would cost to build the place and put in the kinds of slopes that would appeal to everyone from the beginner to the pro. The designers had given him a rudimentary plan, but now he had to look over the actual site and see how much could actually become reality. And if it would be worth it.

He half hoped it wouldn’t be. Then he could leave and be sure he’d never see Bri again.

Just what the hell had he expected, anyway? The woman had always been stubborn, she clearly hadn’t trusted him and she’d divorced him. A sane man wouldn’t have returned for a second round.

But he knew what he had wanted. Their marriage was dust, but it still chapped him that she had believed those lies about him. It wasn’t enough to know in his own mind that he’d never cheated, he wanted—no, needed—Bri to know it, too. Somehow that mattered and had never stopped mattering.

Somehow it all still mattered, he thought grimly as he settled into a booth in the overbright truck stop diner. Three years since the divorce. Even longer if he counted back to when he’d first realized the relationship was crumbling. Shouldn’t he be over it all by now?

But maybe when you’d invested that many hopes and dreams into a person and a relationship, cutting loose wasn’t easy. God knew, he’d never wanted the divorce. He just hadn’t had the heart to fight her anymore.

Setting her free hadn’t been easy. It had been necessary.

Chapter 2

A week later, Bri was in the locker room, ditching her scrubs for street clothes. She was feeling good, all things considered. Apart from an uneasy awareness that Luke was probably still around somewhere, she hadn’t seen him. A mercy. She felt she had stuffed all the painful genies back into the bottle, and that life had pretty much returned to normal.

That normalcy had been hard-won, and she welcomed its return. Even though her marriage had been running into trouble before the never-to-be-forgotten phone call from Barbara, that hadn’t made it any easier to break the ties. Anyone who thought divorce was easy had clearly never been through one.

She sighed, pushing the memories away once again. She was here now, reasonably content with her life and enjoying her job. No need to hash over the dead things in her life. Looking forward had always been her salvation.

After she had dumped all over Diane, however, her best friend had left her with a question that she was trying to ignore: Why do you still care so much?

Ah, heck, she thought, closing her locker. Why indeed? There seemed to be no answer to that.

Forcing her thoughts back to the mundane, she realized she hadn’t heard any more sounds from the attic. Maybe it hadn’t been raccoons after all, but simply the wood expanding or shrinking. Certainly the temperatures had been unpredictable this spring. It ought to be greening out there right now, but the trees were showing more intelligence than the calendar. They hadn’t even tried to bud yet, as if they knew darn well there was still snow on the ground and more in the forecast. Weird.

She was just emerging from the locker room when one of the nurses passing by stopped her. “Do you know Luke Masters?”

A week of good resolutions seemed to evaporate. “Unfortunately.”

“Well, he’s in the E.R. asking for you. Dr. Trent sent me to find you.”

“I’m on my way.” Why would he be asking for her? And what was he doing in the E.R? Her heart sped up, and she figured no amount of resolve was going to cure that until she found out what was going on.

Part of her just wanted to head for the door and pretend she hadn’t gotten the message. The cowardly part. The part of herself she sometimes believed might have been the cause of a lot of problems in her life.

Sighing, she headed for the E.R, but she couldn’t imagine any reason Luke would be asking for her. She thought they’d pretty well ended any hope of talking that night last week. On the other hand, as a nurse she’d seen plenty of the worst that could happen to people, and knew how often they wanted to see a familiar face. Any familiar face.

Then it hit her like a ton of bricks. Luke was in the emergency room? Visions of catastrophe, drawing on graphic memory, suddenly crashed home. She increased her pace to the fast walk hospital staff used because they weren’t supposed to run. It was damn near as fast.

She reached the nurse’s station in front of the emergency pod. Ira Mason stood there, sorting some files. “Hi, Ira. I hear you have a patient asking for me.”

He nodded. “Luke Masters? You know him?”

She caught herself just in time, holding back the statement that he was her husband. Not anymore. Man, was she going to slip into old habits that easily? A little flame of annoyance lit. “From way back.”

“Bay three.”

“Is it bad?”

“Well, he’s not in danger of dying. Pretty messed up, though.”

That was about all she was going to get from Ira. It wasn’t her case, she wasn’t a relative and the hospital was pretty strict about patient privacy. As it should be, she thought as she walked down the hall to the cubicles.

Sheila Gardner was hurrying toward the front with a clipboard. “Ah, you must be here to see that guy who’s asking for you. Bay three.”

Bri didn’t fail to notice the curiosity on Sheila’s face, but this was no time for a heart-to-heart about past heartbreaks. The silly phrase floated through her head, but provided no distraction. Luke was hurt, and the intervening years were slipping away as fast as a speed skater headed for the finish line. Nor did all her training as a nurse prevent her heart from climbing into her throat as she approached the bay. How bad was it? She had plenty of experience to raise horrifying images in her mind’s eye.

She pulled the curtain aside and stepped in. The sight of Luke’s naked leg raised and surrounded by metal framework didn’t shake her. They’d probably had to stretch his leg a bit to reset bones. There was no evidence that the fracture had broken the skin—a good sign.

What got to her was the face above the blanket that covered him from chin to hips. He had a huge bruise around his eye, red and angry-looking, and his left cheekbone appeared swollen. Then she noticed that the arm lying along his side already sported a cast.

Damn, he’d done a number on himself.

She heard a rubber-soled step behind her and turned to see Dr. Trent. “He’s going to be okay,” he said. “They’re checking the X-rays of his leg right now to see if the reset looks good or if they’ll need to pin it.”

She nodded quickly, wondering why her mouth was so dry. “His head?”

“So far the concussion actually appears mild. We did a CT on him and saw only some insignificant bleeding. He also cracked his cheekbone. No displacement, no movement of the bone, so we’re going to leave it. His arm was a simple fracture, but his hand is a mess of lacerations and contusions. He’s not going to be happy when he wakes up from the morphine.”

Then Dr. Trent touched her arm. “He was pretty angry when he came in here. Aggressive. We need to keep an eye on that concussion, at least overnight. It might be worse than we think. Just watch it. There’s no telling how he might react when he wakes.”

She knew all of this already, but she didn’t mind having Dr. Trent repeat it. Somehow it was more calming hearing it in his measured, steady voice than from inside her own head.

Then came the question she had half expected and had been dreading.

“Bri? Does he have anyone around here? Because he’s going to need help, but mostly he’s going to need some pretty close observation. Of course, we can keep him hospitalized....”

The idea of Luke putting up with being stuck in a hospital would have been funny under other circumstances. Heck, he was going to be upset enough about the limitations his injuries were going to cause. He was not good patient material.

“There’s just me,” she said quietly. “We’re divorced.”

Trent grimaced. “Not good. Although I guess that’s why he kept demanding we get you. I don’t think he knows what decade it is right now. Well, I can sure understand if you don’t want the responsibility. Just let me know so I can make arrangements after we find out how that leg is.”

Maybe, she thought bitterly, as she stood staring at Luke, she should call Barbara to come watch him.

Bitterness aside, though, something stronger tugged at her. At last she gave in with a sigh and sat on the one chair beside the bed. She tried to focus on the steady drip of the IV into his uninjured arm, but her eyes kept straying back to his face. God, he was a mess! That cheek alone was going to cause him some huge pain.

Sheila came in, nodded to her and checked his vitals. Then she pulled out an ice pack, flexed it to activate it, and rested it gently on his cheek. “Twenty minutes,” she said.

“I’ll take care of it.”

“You haven’t eaten, have you?”

“I just got off shift.”

“Then let me bring you a tray from the cafeteria. They have a passable turkey breast tonight. Potatoes or rice?”

“Potatoes, please. And coffee. Looks like I’m going to need it.”

“You should have heard him when they brought him in. Cussing a blue streak. He said somebody pushed him, but the other guy who was up there with him said no one else was around. Then he kept demanding to see you. He said he had to warn you. I mean, man, he was out of it.”

Bri listened, her heart growing heavy. She knew even mild concussions could cause all sorts of disorientation. It wasn’t unusual for a concussed patient who was conscious to ask every thirty seconds where they were and what had happened. But claims of being pushed? A need to warn her of what? That seemed to go beyond the ordinary confusion.

Rubbing her forehead, trying to ease the beginnings of a tension headache, she felt the first real fear. Earlier she had been concerned, but not afraid. Looking at him, however, she thought of all the deficits that could arise from even a so-called mild concussion. Sheila’s description of his state when he arrived hadn’t reassured her at all.

She wished his eyes would open, that he’d look at her, recognize her and be all right. Bad as things had gotten between them, she wished him no ill. None at all. But she had never expected to ever again fear for him.

Unsettled, she wanted to get up and walk outside, at least for a few minutes, to gather her increasingly scattered thoughts and emotions. Much as she tried to tell herself that she cared about him the way she would have cared about anyone she had known, the response inside her told her she was lying.

There were threads left tying her to him and the past. She had thought them cut, but they remained. She felt as if she were on a pinnacle, suddenly surrounded by the abyss of all that she had thrown out of her life. The pain remained, but something else did, too.

This was not good.

Sheila popped in with a dinner tray and Bri thanked her. She glanced at the clock above the bed and saw that the ice pack needed to remain another five minutes. She wondered what was taking X-ray so long. She wondered if she would be able to eat.

She grabbed the coffee first. Sheila had brought her two covered cups full. She downed them both, then took a stab at the turkey, potatoes and broccoli. The broccoli was a little soggy from being in the steam tray, but otherwise Sheila was right about it being a passable meal.

She paused to remove the ice pack from Luke’s cheek and stood for a minute, just looking down at him. The bruise was still spreading, distorting his face even more. It looked as if he was going to be eating through a straw, she thought.

That little flicker of anger that had started earlier returned, but it was not anger at him. All of it arose from seeing him laid low like this. In the years she had known Luke, he’d always been a powerhouse, always on top of things, always independent. Maybe that had been part of what had bothered her, that he had never seemed to need her in any way. It wasn’t as if she wanted him to be dependent on her, but it would still have been nice to feel needed in some way. Essential.

Wow, that was a heavy thought. She pulled back from the bed and picked up the tray again. She’d wanted to feel essential? Wasn’t that a crock. She liked her own independence and had respected his. Right?

Staring down at the tray, she wondered what was going on inside her. Last week she had yelled at him for always being gone during their marriage. Now tonight she was thinking he hadn’t made her feel important enough?

Whoa. Being around him again wasn’t going to be good for her unless she could find a way to avoid thoughts like these. At this late date, it struck her as just more rationalization, anyway. Since the relationship was over, it was pointless to invent new reasons for its failure.

Her appetite gone, she took the tray out and put it on the meal cart rack in an empty slot. Catching sight of Sheila, she asked, “Who brought Luke in? There was someone working with him?”

“Yeah. I didn’t recognize the guy.”

“Where is he now?”

“He said he had to go back and pick up tools he left because he was in such a rush to get Luke down here.”

Made sense, Bri thought. Just as she reentered the cubicle, Dr. Trent appeared. “Good news. We can wrap the leg—the break won’t need any pins. You want to wait outside? With any luck, we’ll have the cast on him before he starts to wake up.”

And then what? Bri wondered as she went to the small waiting area. He’d stay overnight here, but then what?

Gloom filled her. Her mind scrambled around, trying to find other ways to manage this, but in her heart of hearts she knew she was going to wind up taking care of him, at least until he was ready to travel.

Luke Masters was going to move back into her life.

* * *

Luke was starting to wake when they wheeled him out of the bay. Bri followed, watching him stir and groan.

“You’re sure the concussion isn’t bad?” she asked Trent again as she passed him.

“Do a neuro on him if you want. Pupils are normal and reactive. All other reflexes are fine. He’s just a little addled at the moment, but like I said, we’ll keep him under observation tonight. The more you can get him to talk or at least acknowledge you, the better.”

As if he were going to talk much with that cheekbone all swollen. He must feel as though he’d been hit by a baseball bat in the head. Never mind the pain he’d start feeling in his arm and leg.

Luke was placed in a room by himself, maybe because he’d been aggressive when he arrived and they feared he might disturb another patient. The ward nurse, Karen Bloom, told her she didn’t have to stay all night.

“You know we’ll watch him.”

“I know, Karen, but he was asking for me. It might be better if I’m here.” Exhaustion was beginning to break through her worry, though. She’d just worked a twelve-hour shift, which had now stretched to more than fifteen if she counted the time in the E.R.

“Your ex, huh?” Karen said. “Not fun.”

Bri didn’t even blink. By this time tomorrow the whole town would probably know that Luke and she were once married. This was not the place to live if you wanted to keep secrets.

“It’s hard to see him this way,” she said quietly, admitting a truth she was reluctant to face.

“I’m sure it is.” Karen patted her arm. “Time for more ice?”

Bri looked at the clock over the door. “Yeah. Thanks. I’ll get it.”

She retrieved several of the instant ice packs and returned to the room. She cracked one and placed it against his cheek, feeling an unwanted ache for him. Apart from his injuries and the pain he would endure, she knew he was going to hate being cooped up. Especially inside his own body. As he’d often joked, he was a man who said “go” and his body went. This was not going to be easy.

As she leaned over him, adjusting the ice pack, his eyes snapped open. She found herself looking into those familiar gray pools.

“Bri?”

“It’s me.”

“I see that. Where did you go? I lost you.” His voice sounded thick, his words slurred by the bruising of his cheek.

She didn’t take him seriously. Concussion often caused this kind of thing. “I’m right here now.”

“What happened? Where am I?”

She’d probably answer that question a hundred times tonight. “In the hospital. You fell and got pretty banged up. You’re going to be fine.”

His unbroken arm lifted; his hand seemed to reach for her. She hesitated, and finally slid her hand into his. She nearly winced as he squeezed. “Don’t go.”

Before she could reply, he was out of it again, but he didn’t let go of her. She tried to ease her hand away so she could sit, maybe stretch out until the next time he woke, but each time she tried, he tightened his hold.

A couple of minutes later he woke again. “Where am I? Bri?”

“I’m right here.”

“Did someone beat me up?”

“You fell. You were out on the mountain, and you fell.”

“Okay.”

His eyes closed again, and this time his grip on her hand relaxed. Sagging onto the chair, she wondered if it would even be worth folding it back into a narrow bed. It would be nice to stretch out and doze, but he was coming out of the morphine now and would wake frequently. Unless the concussion was getting worse. The thought made her shudder.

She scooted the chair closer to the bed, kept her eye on the clock for the ice pack and rested her hand on his shoulder. Maybe that contact would help him.

Karen popped in and was glad to hear he’d been talking. She noted the times, checked his pupils and told Bri everything looked good.

“Who was that?” Luke awoke again. “Who was here?”

“A nurse.” She rose and bent so he could see her without moving too much.

“You’re a nurse.”

“Right. But I’m not your nurse. Karen is.” Although it was beginning to look as if she’d be his nurse soon enough, unless he chose an ambulance ride to somewhere else. Her heart sank again.

“What happened? Where am I?”

If she hadn’t been through this so many times, Bri would have been seriously worried. His confusion was normal, but she found a penlight in the drawer and checked his pupils again anyway. She needed to see for herself.

“What are you doing?”

“Making sure you’re okay.”

“I don’t feel okay. Where did you go?”

She ignored the last question. “You fell. You hit your head and broke your arm and leg. Just relax. Everything’s fine.”

Everything except her.

“I lost you,” he muttered. “I couldn’t find you.”

Oh, boy, this was going to be fun. When she could, she sat again and waited for the next round. Hearing repeatedly that he’d lost her was not making this any easier to take. For three years or more, she had pretty much decided he had thrown her away. Now he was saying he’d lost her?

Deliver me, she thought as she sagged on the chair. It didn’t help any to remind herself that he was concussed and making little sense. She didn’t want to peek into these thoughts, however addled, from a man who should have remained in her past. And she hoped like hell he didn’t remember saying any of this when he improved.

They weren’t words that would make either of them happy.

* * *

By dawn, Luke no longer asked where he was and what had happened. He now remembered it from one moment to the next—an excellent sign. He was even aware enough to tell Bri to go home and get some sleep. She didn’t hesitate. He wouldn’t be released before noon, unless he made other arrangements, and frankly she didn’t want to be around for the pain he was going to experience the first time he sipped broth through a straw.

“Get him a milk shake,” Sheila suggested. “He doesn’t look like someone who will make it for long on broth.”

“Probably not. Call me if anything develops. Has anybody seen the guy who brought him in?” That was beginning to trouble her. Shouldn’t a coworker have been here to check on him?

“Not yet. I’ll let you know. Girl, you look dead.”

“I feel halfway there.”

“At least you have the next four days off.”

She’d forgotten that. She could catch up on her sleep. Maybe. Unless she needed to watch over Luke at her place, in which case she’d rather be working. It would be a great excuse to make him call someone else.

Her eyes felt gritty and burned. The bright sunlight almost hurt, and for a moment she had a wild idea that maybe the night had turned her into a vampire. Nope, her skin didn’t smoke.

The silliness indicated that she desperately needed sleep. Next thing, she’d be hallucinating. Aware that she wasn’t at her best, she drove with extra care and finally pulled into her driveway with a huge sense of relief. Home. Bed. Sleep.

She might have left Luke at the hospital, but she realized as she climbed out of her car that he had come home with her anyway. She couldn’t erase the anguished tone of voice in which he’d said he lost her.

Concussion craziness, she told herself sternly. Icy snow still covered the ground, and she walked carefully, wishing spring would just get on with it. She needed some warmth. She needed to be able to stride freely again without fear of slipping.

Dissatisfaction followed her and she tried to blame it on a rough night. She was happy with her life, she loved living in a place with seasons, including winter, and so what if one of them lasted too long?

Dang. Her own thoughts were getting as addled as Luke’s.

“Bri?”

She looked around, startled, and saw Jack standing a few feet away. A man of about thirty, he was thin enough to look like he was still a kid. His dark hair was shaggy, his dark eyes strangely penetrating. “Jack? Is something wrong?”

He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I don’t know. One of the cops was here a little while ago looking for you.”

“Thanks.” Somebody at the hospital had probably reported that Luke had said he’d been pushed. And that she was his ex-wife. Lovely. What was she supposed to know about anything? “I’m sure they’ll come back if it’s important. Are you on your way to work?”

“Yeah.” He nodded and started to shuffle away.

She stared after him for a moment. Somewhere in the fog that wrapped her brain, it struck her as odd that he would have known the cops were here. Then she shrugged the thought away. Jack was a pretty lonely guy, she figured. Always nice and polite, but he’d probably been walking past here when the cops came and had just waited to tell her. Made him feel important.

Inside, she barely paused. She pulled off her clothes, letting them lie where they fell as she stumbled down the hallway. Her bed was the only thing she wanted. She took just enough time to pull on a long flannel nightshirt, then crawl under the covers. She fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

Luke and all the problems he might raise could wait.

They only waited a few hours, however. The phone started ringing off the wall around noon. Like a well-trained nurse, she came instantly awake. A headache had settled in while she slept but she ignored it, reaching for the phone beside her bed.

“Bri? It’s Jan. Dr. David asked me to call you. We’ve got a lion who wants out of the cage, but he can’t be released until we know he’ll have care. So...”

“On my way. What about the guy who was working with him?”

“He showed up, too. That’s part of what’s going on here. Plus a deputy. Sorry.”

“What am I supposed to do about that?”

Jan laughed quietly. “Soothe the raging beast? I don’t know. It’s kind of funny, actually.”

Bri sat up and realized her head was pounding. A migraine. Lovely. Funny? What in the world was Jan talking about?

Groaning once or twice, Bri struggled into her clothes, popped some ibuprofen for the migraine and grabbed a roll for breakfast. On the way to the hospital she stopped to get a large milk shake at the diner, wondering why she even bothered. Sometimes she was too nice for her own good, she thought irritably. This was not going to be a good day.

It started getting interesting, though. As she walked down the corridor in the ward where Luke was being kept, she could hear him.

“Don’t you tell me I can’t leave! I can leave anytime I want. You can’t keep me.”

Apparently he was not fully over the concussion. Luke might not like being trapped in a hospital bed, but he’d always been sensible. This didn’t sound sensible.

She entered his room to find Dr. David, Jan, Police Chief Jake Madison and a strange man clad in heavy work clothes. Firmly stuck in the bed by his elevated leg and broken arm, Luke was holding forth, his words slurred by the swelling in his face.

She rounded the bed, took his good arm, put the milk shake in his hand and said, “Shut up and drink.”

Luke paused midsentence, blinked and said, “Bri?”

“Who else? Shut up and drink. Let me find out what’s going on.”

“They’re keeping me prisoner.”

“You don’t look ready to walk out of here. Now put the straw in your mouth and drink.”

To her surprise, he obeyed. He took one pull on the straw and looked at her. “Do you know how much that hurts?”

“Not as much as you’re going to hurt if you try to stand on that leg right now. Drink.”

She turned to everyone else. “How about you all tell me what’s happening?”

Dr. David—all the docs here preferred to be called by their first names—answered first. “He can’t leave here unless we’re certain he’s going to get proper care. The concussion can have effects for weeks, as you know. Then there’s his lack of mobility. Dr. Trent doesn’t want him walking on that leg for a week.”

“A week?” It must have been a pretty bad break. She nodded. “Okay, I get that part, and from what I see he’s still not quite in his right mind.”

Luke stopped drinking. “I’m perfectly sane!”

“And perfectly concussed. Hush and drink. Let’s figure out things so we know what to do.”

She was beginning to understand why Jan could see some humor in this. She was beginning to see it herself.

“Bri...”

“If you don’t behave, I’m going to tape you with my cell phone so I can show you later just how impossible you’re being.”

He glared at her, but resumed trying to drink his milk shake.

“Now what about everyone else here?” she asked.

The stranger stepped forward, offering his hand. “I’m Mike Hanson. I work with Luke sometimes. We were out checking out the building site when Luke fell. I brought him in. The thing is, he was insisting he was pushed, so I reported it to the chief here.”

Jake Madison nodded. “We were hoping Mr. Masters might remember, but he doesn’t seem to.”

“That’s not unusual,” Dr. David said. “He might never remember what happened right before his fall.”

Jake nodded again. “I’m asking Mr. Hanson here to take a deputy out to the site to see if there’s any evidence that someone else was out there, but he didn’t see anyone at the time.”

“Not a soul,” Hanson agreed. “It was awfully slippery out there, but Luke isn’t a careless man. That’s the thing. If he says he was pushed, I believe him.”

“We’ll check it out,” Jake said. A moment later he departed, reminding Mike that a deputy would be by to pick him up shortly.

Bri followed him out. “Jake? Someone told me you or another officer were at my place early this morning.”

“Me. When I heard you’d spent all night watching Luke, I thought he might have told you something.”

She shook her head. “He couldn’t even remember for ten seconds that he was in the hospital.”

“That’s what I was just told. Your ex, huh?”

Bri simply sighed. Jake winked at her. “Fun times. Not. Good luck.”

Back in the room, a glaring Luke was still drinking his milk shake. Bri’s first question was straight to the point and directed at Mike.

“Is the company going to send transport for him? He obviously can’t work like this.”

Mike shook his head. “They said they aren’t going to hire an ambulance just to move him somewhere else. When he’s ready for a car and plane ride, he can go home. They’re sending out another builder.”

Luke released the straw. “Nobody else is going to do my job.”

Mike shook his head. “Sorry, Luke, but you’re in no condition to do it yourself. You can advise, but you ain’t climbing no mountains.”

“I’m sure not staying here.”

Dr. David spoke. “Well, you sure as hell aren’t going to stay at the La-Z-Rest. You need to be under observation. You’re going to need help until we can get you up on crutches, which doesn’t look like anytime soon what with that broken arm. Regardless, you might be a wheelchair commando for a few weeks, and you can’t be by yourself.”

The freight train was bearing down on her. Bri felt as if she were standing at the end of the tunnel and could see the light coming. At least until he could be transported, she was probably the only option. She gave up the fight, hoping she wasn’t making a huge mistake.

“He can stay with me, but I need to make arrangements for a chair and a hospital bed. I’m assuming you want to continue elevation on the leg?”

David nodded. “Best to keep the swelling down.”

“I don’t want to stay with you,” Luke said.

“Sorry, buddy, but it’s your only choice. Don’t worry, I’ll ship you out as soon as I can.”

“I’m sure,” he said bitterly, then fell silent.

Bri tried pretending a brightness she didn’t feel. “I need to get things ready.”

“I’ll help,” David said. “We’ve got plenty of rental stuff here at the hospital. We just need to arrange to move it. Are you sure you have room?”

“I never use my living room anyway.” Resignation was beginning to set in. A week, maybe two. She looked at Mike. “Can you get all his things from the motel? Eventually I’m going to need his personal care products, and maybe some clothing.”

“I’ll do that as soon as I’m done with the deputy.”

Bri reached out and touched his arm. “Come by in a few days. Don’t leave him feeling cut out of the loop.”

Mike nodded. “I will. As soon as I know how the company wants to handle all this.”

“They really won’t transport him?”

Mike shook his head. “We’re all just widgets, ma’am. Every one of us can be replaced.”

She wondered if Mike knew how sour he sounded. She’d think about that later. She looked again at Luke. “I’m going to need some relief when I have to come back to work.”

“I’ll help,” Jan said. “My break is coming up soon.”

Bri would have been happier if someone else had offered, but she didn’t want to examine that too closely. Luke was a closed chapter, right?

Right.

* * *

By five that afternoon, Bri’s living room had been transformed. A hospital bed, complete with a frame-and-pulley system to keep Luke’s leg elevated, had been installed. She’d arranged it so he could see the television, and moved unnecessary items out of the way or into other rooms. Since he was going to have to get around in a wheelchair with his leg sticking straight out, at least for a while, she cleared pathways so he could get out of the living room and down the hall to the bathroom. Any way she looked at it, that part was not going to be easy.

“Bonehead,” she said aloud. “You should have just stayed in the hospital. Or paid someone to fly you out of here to somewhere else.”

Except she didn’t know where else he could go. The two of them had been orphans, their parents gone, no other family to speak of. It was either her living room or some rehab facility—and he was likely to need rehab eventually regardless. In the meantime, until the worst of the concussion passed, he couldn’t be trusted on his own or without continual observation. Nor was it as if there were some convalescent facility nearby he could transfer to. One of the downsides of truly being in the boonies.

She felt ticked at DEL for treating him this way, too. He’d been injured on the job. They should have been all over themselves trying to help instead of saying he could just stay put until he could travel by conventional means. It was as if he had become useless to them.

Then another thought struck her. Could he lose his job over this? She wouldn’t put it past them. A lot of these large companies looked at employees as interchangeable parts, as Mike had said. Lose one, find another.

Pulling on her jacket, she went outside to salt her porch, steps and sidewalk yet again. Not much longer now. She put the salt away in the plastic bin she kept on one corner of her porch and stood waiting. The past, she thought, was about to descend with a vengeance.

The ambulance appeared around the corner and pulled up in front of her house. She knew both the EMTs, of course. Tim and Ted. They joked that they were the “Tim and Ted Show,” and sometimes they lived up to that appellation with their zany humor and jokes. Today they were just looking busy and rushed.

She went down to them as they opened the back door of the vehicle, and saw Luke strapped into a wheelchair with his leg extended in front of him.

“Everything is not okay,” Ted muttered to her. “Loony tunes.”

“Concussion.”

He sighed. “I know that. I was just warning you. Sometimes he makes sense. Sometimes not so much.” He hopped up inside and passed down a couple of heavy plastic bags. “Supplies, meds and instructions, and his personal belongings,” he said by way of explanation. “Open the front door for us, will you?”

Except for a couple of groans when he was inadvertently jostled, Luke remained surprisingly quiet. Ted and Tim were sweethearts and helped Luke to the bathroom before lifting him onto the bed and helping to raise his leg.

Throughout, Luke groaned sometimes but didn’t complain. She gave him credit for that because he certainly had enough to complain about.

“Doc David said to tell you he had IV painkillers before he left the hospital. None of that stuff in the bag until around nine p.m.”

Then Ted paused. “You can’t do this alone.” He pulled out a card and scribbled on the back. “Our home phone numbers. You need anything at all, call. Did you get some stuff he can eat? Because we can run to the store or something.”

“I stocked up on broths and there are four milk shakes in the fridge.”

Ted nodded approval. “We’ll bring some more tomorrow.”

Then they zipped out with cheery goodbyes.

After she closed the door, Bri thought the house felt at once strangely full and strangely silent. As if something dark had entered.

Only her own past. Hooking her jacket onto the hall tree, she went into the living room to check on her patient. To her surprise, he was wide-awake and more like himself. His gaze was sharper, as if the world had once again come into focus for him.

“I’m sorry, Bri. I’m messing up your life.”

“That depends. If you behave yourself, no mess. How are you feeling?”

“Like I took a bad fall and broke too many things. I don’t know what they gave me for pain, but it almost feels like it’s a long way away.”

“Well, that’s good, anyway.” She pulled over the desk chair she had brought out here because it would be easy to roll around and sat beside him. “Do you remember anything about what happened?”

“No.” He didn’t even try to shake his head. It probably felt as big as a pumpkin, she thought. “I know we were climbing around checking out sight lines and terrain. To build up there we’re going to have to do some blasting. The last thing I remember was walking along what looked like a level path. The snow wasn’t very deep. I guess it must have been slippery, though.” Lifting his good arm, he waved at himself, then winced slightly. “Damn, how long am I going to be like this?”

“It’s going to take a while,” she said honestly. “If you behave, you might get a walking cast in a week or two, but I don’t know. I’m not the doctor.”

“Hell.” He sighed and closed his eyes. The next thing she heard was a quiet snore.

She pulled the blanket up to protect him against drafts. Even with the heat on it was still cold enough at night that occasionally the chill wafted through the house like frigid fingers.

His being asleep gave her time, though, to go eat her own dinner. When she’d stopped for the milk shakes, she had bought herself one of Maude’s steak sandwiches and a salad, enough to keep her going for two days. She ate quickly, concerned about Luke in the next room, but she didn’t want him to wake and see her chowing down on real food. He had enough misery to contend with.

After she cleaned up, she went back to check on him. His eyes were open, and despite the red and rapidly purpling swelling that covered one whole side of his face, he managed a crooked smile. “Thanks, Bri.”

“Somebody had to do it. DEL apparently doesn’t think you’re worth bringing back.”

“Probably thinks I should have stayed in the hospital.”

“Maybe you should have.”

“Doesn’t suit me.”

“No kidding.” Once again she could almost see the humor in this, except there was absolutely nothing humorous about the injuries he had suffered. “Getting hungry?”

“A little.”

“Broth or milk shake?”

“Milk. Please.” At least that was what it had sounded like. So she brought him a milk shake and when she was sure he had a good grip on it, she sat again. “You want the TV?”

“Not really. Maybe later. I’m...having a little trouble following things.”

She could well believe it. The improvement since last night was huge, but he was going to take a while to come back fully. It was a good sign, however, that he recognized he was having a problem.

“Pretty, up there on the mountain,” he mumbled.

“It certainly is. I’m not sure I want to see it turned into a resort.”

“You and shum—somebody else.”

Her heart slammed. Had he remembered? “You think you were pushed?”

“Mike said.”

So he had heard what Mike said. Not exactly evidence of anything except that he now remembered something from this morning. Impulsively, she reached out and laid her hand on his shoulder. Almost at once she snatched it back, shocked by the zing of attraction she felt for him. She knew his body intimately, and at this most inappropriate time, those memories seemed to want to come back. She had to force herself to remain professional when she had the worst urge to lean over him, kiss him and tell him everything would be okay. “Don’t worry about it. The important thing is to heal. Everything else can wait.”

“Never been a good waiter.” Then he dozed off again. She caught the milk shake as it began to tip from his hand and set it beside him on the adjustable table that had been brought with the bed.

Sitting back, she watched him, thinking about how fast her life had been turned on end, and what it might mean if he had been right about someone pushing him.

There were certainly people hereabouts who didn’t want to see anything change. They’d resisted the semiconductor plant and had celebrated when it shut down and the jobs went overseas. They barely tolerated the community college. Why would they ever want a big resort that would bring all kinds of strangers to the area?

But there were a lot more people who wanted jobs. Wanted some kind of economic infusion into this county. Ranching was no longer the big moneymaker it had once been, not since the commodities markets and ethanol had raised the cost of feed through the roof. A lot of them stuck it out, though, refusing to give up their way of life and land that their families had owned for generations. She watched them make all kinds of hard adjustments to survive.

But people in town were making the same adjustments. Church rummage sales were so well picked-over these days that there hardly seemed to be anything left for them. Nearly everyone dressed in secondhand clothes, pregnant women traded outfits, young mothers traded baby clothes, and even goods from China weren’t moving fast off the racks at Freitag’s Mercantile.

The place was fading, she thought sadly. Probably like a million other small rural communities. A ski resort could turn that around. It might not mean great jobs for the locals, but it would mean jobs. Business for the stores in town, as long as the resort didn’t supply everything. She needed to ask Luke about that.

But the entire character of the community would change, and she really couldn’t blame the folks who wanted to resist.

“Face-lift.”

The word startled her back to the present and she realized Luke was awake again. She put the milk shake back in his hand and he sipped on the straw.

“Good,” he said.

“I’m glad. Who needs a face-lift?”

For a moment he looked confused, then said, “The town.”

“Oh. I don’t know if people will like that. What kind of face-lift?”

“Paint. Brick sidewalks. Streetlights...”

Well, none of that sounded exactly awful, she thought. If that’s all that was involved. She waited, but his thoughts seemed to have drifted elsewhere.

“Great mountain,” he said, then resumed sipping. It appeared to be getting a little easier.

“I love those mountains. I don’t know if I want to see them shredded by ski runs.”

“Not visible.”

“What’s not visible?”

He sighed. “Not from down here.”

“Oh.” All of a sudden she wished it were easier for him to talk. She wanted to ask him all kinds of questions about what DEL intended to do up there.

“Hurts,” he said, this time sounding angry.

“Where?”

He just looked at her like, Isn’t it obvious?

She glanced at the clock. “It’s too soon for more pain meds, Luke. Another half hour. I guess you feel like you’re being hammered.”

“No joke.”

“Soon,” she assured him. “Very soon.”

He sighed, and his eyes closed as he drifted away, a result of the concussion most likely. Or maybe the remaining morphine in his system.

“I lost you,” he said, then passed out again.

“You threw me away,” she answered quietly. The real pain in her heart that had never gone away, the certainty that he had thrown her away. She was glad he didn’t hear her.

Chapter 3

Bri spent the night on the couch in the living room in case Luke needed something. He was able to tend to his most personal needs, so she didn’t have to manhandle him down the hall to the bathroom, a relief. She had no doubt she could have done it, but it wouldn’t have been fun for either of them.

By morning, though, a thought had occurred to her. She needed to look after the man for at least a week, maybe longer, depending on how soon he could travel. His cast went from his ankle to above his knee, which meant that wasn’t likely to be soon.

With a sigh, she picked up the phone and called Jack. “I need a safety bar in my bathroom,” she told him. “Can you do that?”

“Sure,” came the prompt response. “When do you want it?”

“As soon as possible. Thanks, Jack. You’re a good guy.”

“Always glad to help,” he responded cheerfully.

And he was a cheerful person. He worked at the hardware store, but picked up side jobs as a handyman. She’d lost count of the times he’d helped her out with something.

She tried making some very soft scrambled eggs for Luke. The man needed something for subsistence besides broth and milk shakes.

He was wide awake when she carried the bowl and spoon into the living room. “Good morning,” she said.

“Morning.” He looked at the bowl.

“Scrambled eggs,” she explained. “No chewing. How’s that jaw feel?”

“Better.”

She supposed that was debatable. It didn’t look any less swollen, but maybe it was on the inside. “Time for your pain pill, too. Water?”

“Please.”

“You want to try to feed yourself?”

“Yeah.”

So she raised the head of his bed, pulled the table over, adjusting its height, and left him to it while she went to get him a glass of water with a straw.

When she came back, he’d already put away half the eggs. “Good,” he said, with what appeared to be an attempt at a smile.

“More where those came from. Just let me know.”

He managed to get the pill down, too. “Coffee?” he asked hopefully.

She hesitated. “I’ll have to cool it down. I don’t know how lacerated the inside of your cheek is, either. It might really sting.”

“Coffee,” he repeated. “Please.”

Puppy-dog eyes, she thought. When had Luke learned to make puppy-dog eyes? Damn, he was tugging her heart strings.

At least she had plastic straws. “Iced coffee,” she suggested. “You have to drink through a straw right now.” She wondered if he had any idea of how much egg he had on his face right now. Probably not. She grabbed a napkin and wiped it gently away.

“Won’t always be like this,” he said.

She wondered if that was a promise or a threat. “No, you’re getting better. I’ll get that coffee.”

She made the iced coffee in a plastic cup, then froze. He must need a sponge bath by now. Oh, wasn’t that going to be fun. But it needed to be done before she changed his sheets.

She didn’t want to do it. She could do it for any patient without a second thought, but this was different. This was a body she had once loved and made love with. Awkward. Awful. She closed her eyes a moment, resisting the idea but knowing it was important for his comfort, if not for his health. He was beginning to get a little ripe.

Oh, hell. She carried the coffee back to him and found he’d nearly finished the eggs. She had to wipe his face again.

He enjoyed the coffee, though, and it didn’t seem to cause him too much discomfort. Of course the pill was probably starting to kick in. Maybe it would make him safely woozy for a sponge bath.

“More eggs?” she asked.

“Not now. Later. Thanks.”

She sat sipping her own mug of coffee, waiting for him to start looking a bit drowsy. Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to be happening.

“How are you feeling?”

“Been through a cement mixer.”

“I imagine it feels that way. Listen, I need to change your bedding, and your gown. I want to do it when the pain pill is working its strongest.”

“’Kay.”

“But...” She bit her lower lip. “I need to give you a sponge bath, too. Will you cooperate?”

Damn him, she thought she saw a wicked twinkle in those gray eyes. “Never thought you’d ask.”

“Damn you, Luke, don’t be a pain. I’ve got to move you around. Clean sheets. Clean body, clean gown. No bedsores on my watch. That’s the beginning and end of it.”

“Yes, Nurse.” But that twinkle seemed to remain. If the rest of his face had been more mobile, the expression probably would have been all over it.

“Luke...”

“I’ll...be good.”

As if he could do much else, she thought irritably. Why was she even bothered by this? Right now he was a helpless slab of meat with a devilish look in his eyes. She’d seen that from eighty-year-olds...although they tried to have the male nurses take care of these things.

“I could call a man to do it.”

“Said I’d be good.” He set the coffee on the table. “What am I gonna do?”

Exactly, she thought. He was utterly helpless, which gave her a momentary flash of pleasure. Luke had never been helpless. Never. Her mind suddenly served up a smorgasbord of the ways she could tease him with a sponge bath, drive him out of his mind the way he had so often driven her. Turn him into a helpless sex slave. The image amused her so much that she was able to laugh at herself, even as heat blossomed between her legs.

The knock on the door surprised her. She wasn’t expecting anyone at this hour, but there was Jack, safety bar and tool kit in hand.

“That was quick,” she said.

He shrugged and gave her a shy smile. “I heard about the guy. Didn’t figure it could wait long.”

“I really appreciate this,” she assured him as she let him in.

“Why do you have to take care of him?” Jack asked as he headed down the hallway to the bathroom. She wasn’t surprised he knew where it was since he’d replaced the tile for her last year.

“Do you see a convalescent home within a few hundred miles? He can’t be moved yet.”

“So how’d you get to be it?”

Good question, she thought. “Because I’m a sucker?”

He astonished her by turning sharply, looking angry. “Don’t say things like that about yourself. You’re a nice lady.”

His vehemence surprised her so much that she nearly stepped back. Jack usually seemed so calm and pleasant. But then his face smoothed and he shifted the bar so he could enter the bathroom.

“I used to know Luke,” she said finally. “It seemed like the right thing to do for a friend.”

“Like I said, you’re a nice lady. Where you want this bar? By the commode or in the shower?”

“He won’t be taking showers while he’s here. Just by the commode. To help him move in and out of the wheelchair.”

“He’s pretty messed up?”

“Seriously messed up.”

“Too bad. This won’t take long.”

She was glad, actually glad, to head back to Luke. Something about Jack disturbed her this morning. He didn’t seem quite like himself. But then everything in her life felt strange right now, so why should Jack be any different?

Luke had finished the iced coffee and asked for more when she got back. At the moment she was glad just to be busy. Everything was off-kilter, and ordinary tasks suddenly felt like a lifeline to sanity.

Luke was back in her life, however temporarily; Jack seemed weird; and God knew she didn’t feel at all like herself.

Jack finished up in about twenty minutes. He had her test the bar to her own satisfaction, leaning her full weight on it.

“Great job,” she told him.

He smiled shyly. “It’s easy.”

“Maybe for you.”

That made him beam. “You got a vacuum? I’ll get up the dust.”

“I can take care of it. The store must need you back.” And she needed him out of here, though she wasn’t sure why. Ordinarily she didn’t mind having Jack around when he was doing a job for her, but today...today something was different.

He looked surprised but finished packing his tools and headed out. She’d get a bill from the store at the end of the month, so he didn’t have to even pause for payment. She was relieved to close the door behind him.

“What was that?” Luke asked.

“My handyman, Jack. I had him put a safety bar in the bathroom for you.”

“Sorry. Sorry for imposing. Causing trouble.”

“It’s not your fault.” She could say that much with truth. And at least he seemed to be growing steadily more coherent. Maybe there wouldn’t be any long-term effects from the concussion. God, she hoped not. Mild concussions had been known to mess people up for years or longer.

Then a thought occurred to her. “Luke? Have you worked with Mike Hanson for long?”

“Five, six years. Why?”

“I just wondered.” Because he’d been the only other person out there when Luke fell, and Luke had initially claimed he’d been pushed. “Do you remember any more about what happened?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s common enough, to forget what happened right before.”

“I hear. I guess I stirred up a mess of trouble, saying I was pushed. Wonder where that came from.”

“The concussion,” she said with more surety than she felt. “People can say and do a lot of crazy things.”

“How do you know what’s real?”

She managed a smile for him. “By what doesn’t change.”

“Not true,” he said, his face drooping. “Life changes. All the time.”

“You’re right. It does.” And sometimes that was its saddest part.

* * *

Changing the sheets and sponging him down didn’t prove that difficult physically, but for her it was sheer hell psychologically. She lowered his leg so she could roll him onto his side and sponge his back. She didn’t care if the sheets got damp, but beneath them was a foam pad, what they sometimes called an egg crate, to help prevent pressure sores. That definitely couldn’t get wet.

So she pulled out a rubber sheet, and once she had carefully rolled him to the side, she tucked it beneath him to catch any water. It was then she saw all the bruises that covered his back. She couldn’t withhold a sound of distress.

“What’s wrong?” He was starting to sound pretty groggy from the pain pill.

“Your back is a mess. You must have rolled when you tumbled. Just bruises. Let me know if I hurt you.”

“You already did that,” he muttered.

She had to resist an urge to snap at him, especially since she was sure he wouldn’t have said it at all if he weren’t full of drugs and concussed. Luke had never been a man to show weakness of any kind. Initially she had admired that in him. Now she wondered.

Wringing out a cloth, she began to wash him from his neck down, baring only small parts of his body to prevent him from growing chilled.

“Feels good,” he mumbled.

“As long as the water stays warm,” she answered. Maybe she should have gotten a heating pad to put beneath the bowl. Or she could just hurry.

She had to be gentle, not wanting to hurt him, but she hoped the rubbing of the terry cloth would stimulate circulation. And instead of going fast, she lingered. It had been years since she had run her hands over this muscled back, but time hadn’t diminished the impact anyway. He was a beautifully built man, sculpted by years of physical labor, without a spare ounce of flesh on him. She knew she wasn’t maintaining proper clinical detachment, but she figured that was a lost cause under the circumstances.

“Feels good,” he mumbled again, drowsily.

To her, too. She worked her way down slowly, relearning every line of him, lingering more than she should have. Her breath quickened, and she felt stupid for it. This man hadn’t wanted her, and anyway, even if he had he was out of action.

When she reached his buttocks, she felt him quiver, and a similar quiver ran through her. It did not help to realize that that hadn’t died with their marriage. Biting her lip, she forced herself to a quicker pace, then covered him with a blanket so he wouldn’t get chilled.

“You feeling all right?” she asked as she rounded the bed.

“Great.”

“I need to get more warm water, then I’m going to turn you again.”

He didn’t answer and she hoped he had dozed off again. This was getting too intimate when it should have been purely clinical. Damn him.

When she returned, she rolled him gently onto his back. One groan escaped him, but only one. “It’s okay,” he mumbled.

She started at his shoulders and began to work her way down bit by bit. When she reached his hips and was about to move the blanket, his good hand reached out with a speed that surprised her.

“No. Not there.”

“I’m a nurse,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound as weak as she suddenly felt.

“No,” he repeated.

She couldn’t help feeling relieved. Honestly, she didn’t know if she could manage to handle his privates with anything approaching proper detachment. But she remembered them, remembered all too well. He was perfectly built in every respect, at least as far as she was concerned. And for a few seconds as she stood there, she realized she wanted nothing more than to touch him intimately again, to caress him and draw groans from his lips. She needed to get a grip. Quickly.

Apparently even in his present state, memory was bedeviling him as much as it was her. He’d never been shy about his body, and if it had been anyone else proposing to wash him, he probably wouldn’t have objected.

Maybe more than one thing wasn’t completely dead yet.

After that, though, things went faster. She made up one side of the bed with a fresh sheet, rolled him over and finished the job while he lay on the freshly made side. Man, it had been a while since she had needed to do this. Usually the LPNs handled it.

But at last he was clean and in a fresh gown. “Bathroom?” she asked.

“Nah, just give me that bottle thing.”

“Call if you need help.” She practically fled. Time to regroup, she told herself as she waited in the kitchen. Time to build up the time and distance he’d erased so effectively. Time to remind herself of all her good reasons for not reacting to him. Time to figure out how she was going to handle this until he could be transported.

Because somehow she had to. Sometimes the hardest part of life was just dealing. The curveballs seemed to keep coming.

* * *

Trent stopped by every evening for a quick look at Luke and three days later pronounced himself very satisfied. “The recovery is really going well,” he said. “I don’t see any new swelling since you left the hospital, Luke, and there’s no sign of infection. At this rate we’ll take you back for X-rays in a few days, and maybe we can get you into a walking cast.”

“That would be great,” Luke said. “I hate being stuck in bed.”

“Well, the good news is, I’m going to allow you to spend some time in the wheelchair now with your leg up. It’ll give you some mobility.”

“Maybe even the front porch,” Bri said. “We’re starting to get warmer at last.”

“I’d continue elevating his leg overnight, but unless you detect some new swelling, he can sit up as much as he wants.” He turned to Luke. “Just don’t tire yourself too much. You’ve still got a lot of mending to do, including inside your head. So don’t push it.”

Bri listened to this, wondering if Luke would follow instructions or just push himself to the brink over and over. She was surprised he hadn’t grown so frustrated with his confinement that he swamped her in it. In fact, when all was said and done, he’d been amazingly cooperative so far.

“What about bending my leg again?” Luke asked.

“The break above your knee was minor. Depending on how the X-rays look we may be able to give you back the use of your knee. No promises, but if we can, we will.”

“God,” Luke said after Trent left, “that would be a relief.”

“What?”

“Bending my leg again. Right now it just juts out there and even getting to the bathroom is a major hassle. Nothing moves right.”

She turned to look at him at last and found him making a funny face. Despite her best intention to remain distant, she had to laugh.

“That’s better,” he said, surprising her. “The freeze around here has been amazing. It’s a wonder I don’t have frostbite.”

She couldn’t protest that he was wrong. She had been pretty much hiding out in the kitchen, appearing only when she had to act the role of nurse. Maybe it wasn’t exactly friendly of her, but she didn’t need to be friendly. Those days were gone and she didn’t want to risk letting them back in. She’d already discovered that three years hadn’t banished old yearnings and old pains, at least not entirely. Spending a lot of time with him would be folly.

So she pretended she was at work, looking in on him as often as necessary, seeing to his essential needs, but definitely not sitting around and entertaining him.

Now his pain meds had been reduced, and she doubted he was going to continue to be such a compliant patient. In fact, she was sure his boredom would start becoming a problem. Maybe having Jan take over for her would be salvation, much as she didn’t want Jan to have free run of her house. She liked the woman well enough, but at some level had never entirely trusted her. Among other things, she was an unkind gossip. Not the sort of person you wanted to share anything intimate with.

On the other hand... Well, on the other hand it turned out she didn’t have to worry about Jan. She needed to worry about herself. The nursing supervisor called to say that she was putting Bri on family leave for the next week.

“But why, Mary?”

“Think about it,” Mary said frankly. “I hear he’s your ex. Do you really want some of the nurses here running over there to cover for you and hunting for juicy details?”

Bri knew exactly who Mary meant. Much as she wanted to escape Luke for a few hours and get back on her normal routine, she couldn’t deny Mary’s point.

“I know this must be hard on you,” Mary said. “But it could be harder, if you think about it. So tough it out, Bri. Maybe once the guy’s brain is less addled he’ll figure out a way to get himself to a convalescent facility.”

After she hung up the phone, she sat at the table wondering how everything had just spun her life out of control and what she was going to do about it. Transport was expensive, and even though Luke was well paid, hiring an ambulance to drive him a couple hundred miles... Well, nobody short of a billionaire would want to do that. The cost of getting a facility to come pick him up would probably be nearly as much.

Nothing like being in the boonies, she thought for the umpteenth time since the accident. Most people had family around here who could do this part, but Luke had no one but her.

Which left her the reluctant nurse. Dang.

In that instant a whole lot seemed to crash down on her. Feelings she’d been deliberately avoiding since Luke had come back into her life. Feelings about him being right there and spending most of her time trying to ignore him. Feelings out of the distant past.

And again and again the memory of how many times he’d said he’d lost her. Did he really feel that way?

She wanted to pack a bag and just run. A tsunami seemed to be headed right at her, and she wondered if she would survive it. Old wounds reopening. Old arguments rebuilding. New problems. Changes.

How long could she keep a lid on it before something snapped?

“Bri?”

The sound of him calling her name pierced her heart. She didn’t want that. She didn’t want that ever again.

* * *

Jack hadn’t seen much of Bri since the accident, except when she ran out for a short time to get more milk shakes or things from the grocery. It made him uneasy. He needed to know what was going on.

He’d thought giving the Luke guy that shove would have settled the matter one way or another. Either he’d die or be transported to a hospital far away.

Instead he’d landed right in Bri’s house. Did she care that much for him still?

He had to know, so he’d crawled into the attic again to listen. So far he hadn’t seen or heard a thing to make him nervous. Bri spent an awful lot of time in her kitchen or bedroom. She hardly talked to Luke.

That was good.

But hearing Luke call for her as though she was some kind of servant really ticked him off. He supposed he should be nice about it, considering the guy was stuck in bed, but he wasn’t feeling very nice about it.

Every minute that Luke spent in her house struck him as a ticking time bomb. What if they made up?

He wouldn’t be able to stand it.

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