Sweet Home Colorado. C.C. Coburn
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nodded to Grace.
Jack’s cell rang. He retrieved it from his pocket and saw that the call was from Adam. If it had been from Mike, he would’ve ignored it.
“Hey, Adam. What can I do for you?”
“You know how you’re supposed to start work on our house?”
“Ye-es,” Jack said slowly, suspicion creeping up his spine.
“Well, I’m wondering if you have anything else you could do instead. Carly wants to stay closer to the hospital until after the baby arrives. She has short labors and she’s worried the extra distance from the new house will mean the difference between giving birth in the hospital and giving birth in the car. To tell you the truth, I’d prefer the first option.”
This had Mike’s meddling written all over it. “I thought you were spilling out of the house on Washington?”
“We are. But that bothers me a lot less than not making it to the hospital in time.”
“So you want me to delay starting your renovation?”
“If you could.”
The tentacles of suspicion crept further up Jack’s spine. “Has Mike called you today?”
“Mike who?”
Jack’s lips thinned. So now it was a conspiracy involving Mike and Adam to throw him and Grace together for the summer. He glanced at Grace. She looked completely innocent.
“I’ll get back to you,” he said, and shut off his phone.
“Grace, this is my foreman, Al Hernandez.”
She offered her hand and Al shook it vigorously.
“I’ve been waiting for you at the back of the house, boss,” Al said. “Yet I find you here, making time with the prettiest señorita this side of the Front Range.”
Jack climbed out of the truck while Al stood back and opened the door for Grace. She slipped past him with a whispered “Thank you” and hobbled to her vehicle. Jack enjoyed the view as she bent to remove her other shoe, opened the trunk and fished around inside it. She straightened, dropped a pair of fancy flip-flops on the ground and stepped into them.
“That’s better,” she said, coming over to them. “I’m Grace Saunders, by the way.” She flashed Al a smile and Jack could see his burly foreman melting under her charms.
Jack cleared his throat. “Shouldn’t you be getting home to Maria and the children?” For some stupid reason he needed to let Grace know that Al was spoken for, even though he was the one who’d prevented Al from getting home by asking to meet him here.
“Just as soon as we’ve done this estimate, boss.”
The three of them headed toward the house, going in through the squeaky front gate and up the weed-covered path. Al continued to the back of the house, saying, “I’ll finish measuring up the outside. Do you have a key?”
“Nope.” Jack reached inside the smashed pane of one of the front windows, releasing the catch. He pulled up the window and hoisted himself inside. Before he could open the front door, Grace followed him in, climbing over the sill.
* * *
MEMORIES FLOODED GRACE—memories she wasn’t prepared for. She staggered and Jack caught her arm.
“I was going to open the door for you,” he said.
Grace wasn’t going to correct his misunderstanding that climbing through the window had caused her to lose her balance.
“You’re whiter than a ghost,” he said. “Would you like to sit down?” Without waiting for an answer, he led her to the stairs.
She sank gratefully onto the first step and forced herself to smile up at him. “I’m just tired. My body’s two hours ahead of my brain and the altitude is bothering me.”
“Is there anyone I can call for you? Your husband?”
Grace shook her head. “My...ex-husband is back in Boston.”
“You’re divorced?”
“I certainly hope so. Otherwise, Edward could end up in a lot of trouble with the law. He’s planning on getting married again come September. To his first ex-wife.”
Jack’s grin lit up his face. He’d always had a great smile.
“I heard your half of the conversation with your brother. Since he doesn’t need you, what do I have to do to sweet-talk you into restoring this place for me?”
What was she saying? Only a moment ago she was dreading spending any time with Jack for fear he’d discover her secret and now she was practically begging him to take the job!
Jack scratched the inside of his elbow again.
“That offer of a cure is still open, if it’ll clinch the deal.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed. “What are you really doing here, Gracie?”
“Grace,” she corrected. “I want this house restored.”
“And then what?”
“And then what, what?”
“Stop talking in riddles. Are you going to stay—or are you heading back to Boston?”
“You mean now?”
“Yes. Now. And then when the place is restored, are you flipping it, never to return to Spruce Lake?”
“My life is in Boston.” No way was she staying in this backwater where everyone knew everyone else’s business and the sidewalks were a death trap for expensive shoes. If Jack took the job, she wouldn’t have to hang around Spruce Lake supervising. She could get out of there, away from Jack, away from any fear that he’d discover her secret.
“Then I suggest you go back there. I’ll help you find another contractor who won’t mind putting his heart and soul into restoring a place only to have it sold off.”
“I’m not selling it, Jack. It has to stay in the family. That’s a promise I made to Aunt Missy.”
Before he could respond, she said, “I’m going to travel around Europe for the next couple of months.” She wondered where that had come from. In truth, Grace hadn’t given much thought to anything the past couple of days, not since little Cassie Greenfield died.
Her patient’s death—one of too many—had been the catalyst for Grace’s decision to throw everything in, get away from Boston and dying children and an ex-husband about to remarry and all the people who wanted to remind her of that while trying to set her up with their cousin, or brother or—heaven forbid—their uncle!
Just because Edward had been more than twice her age didn’t mean she was looking for another older man. It didn’t mean she was looking for another man, period! Edward had been a far from satisfactory husband or lover. But she’d married him in her first year of med school, when he was already a well-respected neurosurgeon. She’d craved the respect and financial security marrying Edward would bring. She’d basked in his compliments and ignored the thirty-year age gap—the age gap that meant he didn’t want any more children. He had two daughters and a son by his previous wife. They were all horrible to Grace—as was his ex-wife—whenever they happened to cross paths at social functions.
When Cassie Greenfield, a little girl who’d fought so hard and so bravely—like so many of her patients did against cancer—had died, something had died inside Grace. Cassie was the same age her daughter, Amelia, would be now. Her and Jack’s daughter.
The guilt she felt at having given up a healthy child, and the cumulative effect of treating so many who weren’t healthy, had come to a head that day.
Grace’s love of medicine and her belief in herself, that she could cure all the hurt and pain in the world, were shattered.