He meets my gaze without hesitation. “Absolutely.”
A laugh slips out of me before I can stop it. “You’re either brave or stupid saying that to a man you barely know.”
Tom leans back against the railing, perfectly at ease. “Or maybe I’ve just been paying attention.”
“To what?”
“The way you look at Mel.”
The breeze shifts through the trees again.
“And the way she looks back.”
I study him for a long moment before shaking my head.
“You’ve got some nerve.”
“Maybe.” His smile is slow and unhurried. “But if I’m wrong, you can tell me to go to hell, and we’ll keep clearing trails like nothing happened.”
“And if you’re not wrong?”
Tom’s gaze stays steady on mine.
“Then maybe you two need a Daddy.”
The words hang in the warm afternoon air.
I look out over the harbor again, the sunlight dancing across the water below.
For the first time in a long while, the quiet doesn’t feel quite so empty.
Behind us, the cleared trail winds back through the trees toward town.
Chapter Six
Mel
The clinic smells faintly of disinfectant, coffee that’s been reheated once too often, and the lemon soap we use for the counters. It’s a clean smell, a practical smell, the kind I’ve lived with for years now, but this morning it sits wrong on my nerves.
I pause just inside the doorway, adjusting my scrubs, and take in the space the way I always do before a shift. Exam rooms prepped. The charts are stacked on the counter, and patient notes clipped and flagged the way I like them.
Everything exactly where it should be in the practice I’ve kept running for years. Nurse practitioner, administrator, triage, paperwork… in Northwick Cove, titles matter less than getting the job done, and this place has always been mine to keep moving.
It should settle me.
It doesn’t.
I pause just inside the hallway and watch through the half-open door.
Judith stands at the exam desk, glasses perched low on her nose while she listens to Luke Grayson describe the rash on his forearm for the third time. She doesn’t rush him. She never does. Her voice carries easily across the room.
The man leaves five minutes later looking reassured and a little proud of himself for surviving the conversation.
Another patient takes his place almost immediately.
I step back into the hall before Judith notices me watching.
Before, the clinic felt understaffed for the number of people who came through the door on any given morning. I’d been moving nonstop from room to room, chart to chart, answering questions before anyone even finished asking them.
