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“To get away from the neighborhood.”
“Ah.”
“They were both hanging around after school with kids who oughta be in juvenile court. Charlie’s babysitters never lasted more than a week, and with Annie’s after-school activities, she wasn’t always available to watch him. Add to that my long hours and I could see we were headed for trouble.”
Jolie nodded. “I worked in an area that was pretty tough. It has to be hard, trying to raise kids right with negative influences luring them every day.”
Quite a difference from how you were raised, sweetheart.“It wasn’t a bad place a few years ago. Decent houses, safe streets. But not anymore.” Matt gathered up the packing materials. “Trash out back?”
Jolie nodded.
As Matt stepped through the door, some of the strapping material slithered through his fingers. She reached for it at the same moment he did, her cool, slender fingers brushing against the sensitive flesh of his inner wrist.
And just that quickly, his heart skipped a beat.
Surprise must have registered on his face, because Jolie gave him a curious look as she tucked the strapping between two pieces of cardboard. “Everything all right?”
With a curt nod, he headed for the trash containers in the alley and dropped the materials inside, then jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and looked up at the stars.
Barb had been gone four years last October...and before that, it had taken her two painful years to die.
Sometimes, he couldn’t hear her voice in his thoughts anymore or even conjure up her lovely face, unless he looked at the family portrait on the bureau in his bedroom. The kids hadn’t cried in his arms in over a year. Life went on, day by day.
Something about Jolie was far too compelling, calling up emotions he’d never expected to feel again. An unexpected awareness of her that could only place him and the kids at risk of heartbreak once again.
Moving here gave them all a chance for new beginnings, a place to build new memories, but that wouldn’t include allowing another woman into his life. His priorities were the kids and the new business. Period.
He would fix Jolie’s door. He would be a good neighbor. But he would definitely keep his distance.
SUNDAY AFTERNOON BROUGHTbalmy mid-April sunshine, brilliant blue skies, and a restlessness Jolie hadn’t felt in a good long while.
Shouldering her purse, she locked the cabin door behind her and stepped out onto the shady porch, breathing in air so pure and sweet she felt like dancing.
In a month the meadow would be awash in a palette of delicate colors—Indian paintbrush, pink gentian, and yellow wood sorrel. There would be shy does and fawns at dusk, and perhaps a mother bear and her cubs lumbering past. A sense of peace settled in her chest.
The cabin, with its great room, two bedrooms, and big loft, was perfect.
She could imagine living here in her old age, sitting out on the wraparound porch to simply watch the mountains change color from dawn to dusk, year after year after year. Why had she waited so long to move home?
Next to the barn, Dolly looked up from a tuft of still-brown grass, her furry banana-shaped ears cocked forward with interest. Checking, no doubt, to see if Jolie carried a handfulof soda crackers. The old ewe bleated and bumped against the llama’s legs, as if begging Dolly to stay put.
“No crackers left,” Jolie called out as she headed for her SUV. “I’ll buy five boxes in town. Promise.”
If any of her Los Angeles co-workers had heard her talking to a llama, they’d probably have stared with open-mouthed astonishment, Jolie thought as she drove down the rutted, rocky road toward the highway.
She’d heard them often enough, whispering behind her back about the aloof doctor who didn’t socialize, didn’t join in the banter at the nurses’ stations or ever meet for drinks after work.Brilliant,they’d said.But cold as ice.
She hadn’t been aloof because of arrogance, no matter what anyone thought. Growing up on an isolated ranch, she’d just never become adept at social banter with the girls at school.
As she passed the lane leading up to Matt’s place, she gave a rueful laugh. She’d never been much good at making idle, social conversation with the opposite sex, either.
Especially with the guys who attracted her the most.
If there’d ever been a guy she truly would’ve liked to know better, it might have been Matt Dawson. Yet, though clearly concerned for her safety and determined to help, he had barely talked to her on Friday night while installing that new door. And he’d shot out to his truck the moment he finished the job.
You’re charming from head to toe, Maxwell. No wonder you’re always alone.
Down at the highway she switched on her right-turn signal to head toward the clinic. Then snapped it in the opposite direction and instead headed in the direction of the main highway.
