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ChapterOne
Noah
My mouth goes dry as the pretty pharmacist waits on me to talk.
And I’m about to choke.
While standing in line, I’d been doing everything I could to work up the nerve to ask her out: Hummed along to Dean Martin crooning Christmas tunes. Stared wistfully at the immaculately preserved soda fountain and lunch counter at the back of the store. Admired the swaying, glittery red and white snowflakes hanging from the drop ceiling. Mentally played “What’s that smell”—a very brief game of identifying medicinal aromas of eucalyptus, camphor, and peppermint. Pretended to be interested in the display of local honey and elderberry syrups by the register.
But now, it’s my turn, and I’m about to fall on my face.
Briefly, the pharmacist looks past me, smiling and waving at another customer. “See you later, Ms. Ernestine! You take that medicine, now, you hear me?”
The woman before me is both warm and assertive with the older folks who come in to pick up their prescriptions. “We’ll see how it goes!” cracks the stubborn Ernestine.
My top lip sweats as the doorbell rings out the older woman’s exit.
“I’m sorry, what was your question?” I rasp, looking the pharmacist straight in the name tag.Ursula Fellows, PharmD.
“Name?”
I doff the brim of my hat and try to pull my shit together. “Noah Taylor.”
Ursula nods. “I’ll get that for you. Be just a moment.” She turns away but not before a strange look passes over her face. Probably surmising that I’m a complete dolt, which isn’t far from the truth.
I notice the sway of her hips as she disappears into the maze of alphabetized pharmaceuticals. Today, the town’s sole pharmacist wears cute, wide-leg trousers and chunky loafers with her ever-present cardigan. The layers do nothing to hide the roundness of her plump derriere, but then I’m partial to noticing Ursula’s curves no matter what she wears.
Sheriff Mooney, my boss, says I’m like a puppy the way I follow Ursula around town.
The sheriff is not wrong. But Mooney is also in his honeymoon phase with Lucy and is now obsessed with making sure everyone else in Fate finds their match.
I suppose that’s a better habit for Mooney than setting up his wild system of roadblocks to keep people from leaving Fate. The guy will do anything to make sure the town grows, even if it’s pushy and borderline illegal.
I have to hand it to him, though. He’s a good boss, and he loves this town. He treats his deputies well, and that was part of the reason I decided to move back to my hometown of Fate after I graduated from the police academy. I was pleasantly surprised he agreed to hire someone who decided to change careers in middle age.
I worked on my grandparents’ horse ranch my whole life until they both passed within weeks of each other a few years back. I found myself alone at 39. No wife, not even a girlfriend.
As much as I love that ranch, the isolation gets to me sometimes. I needed a change, and I needed to be around people.
Shortly after Mooney hired me, Ursula visited the sheriff’s office to run a blood drive. That was the first time I saw her, and I fell hard. I was first in line the second that raven-haired lady in the scrubs and cardigan walked in and set up her temporary work station. I still remember that moment I rolled up my sleeve and let her feel for my artery with her strong, latex-gloved hands. Her fingertips pressed down on the inside of my elbow. She wore pink lip gloss and smelled like caramel coffee. Her hair was pulled away from her face in a stretchy headband with bold stripes that complemented her thick, dark waves. Under her dark cardigan, Ursula wore a plum-colored scrub top with a vee neck, revealing a portion of freckled skin that sent my mind wandering in a very inappropriate direction.
“You have very nice veins,” she murmured, running her thumb over that soft patch of skin. She blushed when she inserted the needle. Or I could have been seeing things, likely I was crazy from my racing heart and stiffening cock. I’ll never forget that day as long as I live.
Nor will I live down the embarrassment at her strange expression as I tried to give a second bag of blood after everyone else went through the line. “You already gave the maximum amount, I’m sorry,” she’d said with an amused little laugh.
I’d wanted to beg her to touch me again, poke me with all the needles, take my blood, my platelets, my marrow, my kidney. Yeah, okay, my head went to weird places. But I was plagued with the feeling that a young woman like her would never want to hang around a guy in his 40s.
My brain snaps away from that memory as Ursula returns to the counter with my little white paper bag, her face stoic and professional as always. She leans over the counter and says, “Apply this ointment twice a day to the affected area, and it should clear up in less than a week.”
“Thanks,” I mutter, the bag crinkling in my fist.
Ursula rings me up, I pay my copay, and we go through the usual back and forth.
“Do you have any questions about interactions?” Ursula asks.
“No.”Not unless you mean how do I get you to remember my name when you literally remember everyone else’s in this town.
“Are you taking any other medications?”
