“Yourself is just fine. Josh is grilling steaks. I’m just popping potatoes in the oven and making a salad.”
“Sounds good.”
“Try not to have an emergency.”
That was exactly what Stephanie was planning: an emergency.
“Why me? Why not invite, say, my tech? She can’t wait to meet him.”
“Because he’s already met you,” Eve explained patiently.
“Why have anyone in addition to you and Josh? I would think the fewer the better. You know how Josh was.”
“If you don’t want to come, you really don’t have to,” Eve said. “I just think he probably needs as many friends as possible here.”
She was being played, and she knew it. Eve had been her champion from the moment Stephanie had appeared in Covenant Falls. Not everyone had wanted a woman vet. Some of the ranchers refused to use her and sent to Pueblo for a vet of the masculine variety. The West, particularly the rural West, was set in its ways.
Eve had browbeaten reluctant clients into going to Stephanie, as well as recommended her to everyone within a fifty-mile radius. Fine. She could do this dinner for Eve. One evening. Clint Morgan would be gone soon. Covenant Falls would be too quiet for him. He needed a large city with buses and taxis and people to charm.
“Okay. Unless there is an emergency.” She took a deep breath. Maybe yesterday was an aberration. “But I might be late. It’s super busy since I won’t be here this weekend for my Saturday hours. I’m participating in a search-and-rescue certification.”
“Whenever you can get there,” Eve said.
The devil danced in her friend’s eyes. Blast it. They had bonded over their aversion to marriage, although each had very different reasons for that aversion. She feared that since Eve had succumbed to the call of love, her friend had her sights on Stephanie. Hell, no.
“Have to go,” Eve said. “We’re still looking for a police chief, and I have an interview this afternoon.”
“Promising?”
“Unfortunately, no. But Tony took the job temporarily and has already stayed longer than he wants.” Eve paid her bill and stood. “See you tomorrow night.”
Stephanie rose with her. She had a heavy appointment schedule this afternoon, plus a meeting later with three people interested in search and rescue. She doubted they would be as enthusiastic after learning the particulars, but if she enlisted one, she would be happy. Training both handler and dog could take as long as two years, never mind the fact they were volunteers and incurred a lot of expense along the way. It was a calling, often without rewards when the result was bad. But those moments of success were worth every minute of time and every dollar spent.
At the very least it would take her mind off the town’s newest resident and what would be a very awkward dinner tomorrow night. For her, anyway. She suspected Clint Morgan would enjoy every moment of her discomfort.
Now Eve owed her.
* * *
AFTER JOSH DROVE him home, Clint sat on the porch, staring at the lake. He needed something. A purpose. A goal. Hell, a life. Rehabbing the cabin had helped his host. Maybe it would do the same for him.
A dock couldn’t be too difficult.
He walked painfully down to the lake and looked at the other docks along the lake. Two were rather elaborate with boathouses. The others just stretched out into the water. Several had fishing boats tied to them. Another had a canoe and a bench.
The afternoon was warm, even hot, although his idea of hot had changed after years in Afghanistan.
Clint could tell from the shoreline and the other docks that the water was lower than normal, maybe by a foot or more. Still, it was a rich blue, which meant depth, and he wondered whether it was fed by springs as well as snow from the mountains.
He went inside and searched websites dedicated to building docks and lost himself in going from one to another, gathering ideas. It was not, he realized, as easy as he’d thought, which was a good thing. He needed a challenge.
It was well past eight when he closed the laptop. He’d made several designs along with a list of needed materials for each. He would take them over to the Mannings’ the following evening.
He stood and the floor swayed beneath him. He grabbed the chair, knowing what was going to happen. He tried to concentrate, but the room was moving now. He needed to get to the bedroom, find his medicine. Lie down before he fell. The dizzy spells were almost always followed by a thunderous headache. He had hoped...
The hall swirled as he used the walls to steady himself. The foot, still sore as hell, didn’t help. He reached the bed. Medicine and a glass of water were on a table next to it. He always left it there.
He lay down on the bed and some of the dizziness faded. Not all of it.
The ceiling still moved. Then the pain started...
CLINT WOKE FEELING as if he had been in a ten-hour battle. His head throbbed, his body too weak to reach the bathroom for a shower.
Light flooded into the cabin. Yesterday, before the dizziness came, he’d been feeling better about the cabin, about being here. He liked Josh. The man didn’t say much, but he didn’t have to.
He thought about Stephanie and wondered if she would be at dinner tonight. He didn’t know why he was so attracted to her. She was far too serious for him, too cautious, too...unreceptive.
Maybe it was the challenge. Or maybe it was the brain trauma. Whatever it was, she was back in his head this morning, crowding everything out but the residue of pain.
He forced himself to get up and walk to the bathroom. There was some good news. Despite the doctor’s warning that his foot would be worse today, it was better. Or maybe he was just putting it into context with the rest of his body.
He took a cold shower to wake up, then a hot one. He limped into the kitchen and poured a large glass of orange juice. He headed for the porch swing. The solitude was jarring. He recognized the irony of that, but since he was eight, he’d almost always been with others, first at boarding schools, followed by army training facilities and finally overseas. He was usually the center of things, something he’d learned in boarding school. To lead for fear of being left behind.
Now he was more alone than he had ever been and none of his mental tricks helped. Not the charm he’d developed, nor a nurtured optimism, nor an immediate goal. He had difficulty seeing anything but emptiness ahead.
He finished the orange juice, limped down the drive and crossed the road that ended in a little roundabout just beyond the cabin. He eyed the path up the steep slope of the mountain. Maybe tomorrow.
He went back inside, and for lack of anything else to do, he started checking out universities to finish his degree. His interest was in aeronautic electronics, but he didn’t find a program that he liked. Maybe his heart wasn’t in it. The thought of spending the rest of his working life in an office was deeply depressing. Although he had a natural curiosity about nearly everything and was a good student, the classroom had been the means of getting to where he wanted to be, and that was in the sky. He liked the outdoors, playing sports and testing himself physically. All that was at risk now.
He found one of Josh’s books and took it to the porch. Maybe it would keep his mind from the future. And Stephanie Phillips.
* * *
STEPHANIE STARED AT the email from one of the few friends she had from the past. Her ex-husband was getting another divorce. That marriage had lasted two years longer than her own. The friend also said he’d made queries about