Trading Secrets

by Christine Flynn

  She couldn’t even count on character references. Her social circle had also been her professional one, and the people she’d thought were her friends at work had backed way from her as if she’d just contracted Ebola.

  From beside her, Greg watched her start to pick at the new twig he’d given her. He’d halfway expected her to snap it in two when she’d mentioned her possessions having been confiscated. He’d thought she might even toss it as she had the other and start to pace when she explained what had happened to her references. Anger had clipped her tone and touched color to her cheeks. The emotion sounded more than justified, given how cavalierly her affections and reputation had been treated. But he had sensed a wealth of hurt in her, too. And that hurt robbed the energy from her agitation.

  “This Brent,” he said, thinking she’d been cheated there, too. Anger could be like a protective skin. Stripped of it, there was nothing left to shield the raw and hurting nerves. “What did he do when you were implicated?”

  She turned her head toward him. “What do you mean?”

  She’d been a babe in the woods, he thought, seeing the injury clouding her lovely blue eyes. Clearly, totally unprepared to be manipulated and exploited by the sophistication she’d so eagerly sought.

  He knew all about that soulless kind of greed. He’d grown up with it.

  “Did he say you were involved, or did he tell them you didn’t know anything?”

  Jenny went back to picking at bits of bark. Of everything the louse had done, he at least hadn’t tried to drag her down with him. “He told them I was clueless.” According to one of the detectives, that had been his exact word, too. Clueless.

  “That didn’t make them back off sooner?”

  “They thought he was protecting me.”

  From the corner of her eye she saw Greg’s mouth thin.

  “So, how did he do it?”

  By wining and dining me, she thought.

  “I had to work late at least one night a week,” she told him. “Usually, I stayed to put together folders and charts for a client presentation and set up the conference room for an early meeting. Brent would come in to wait for me before we went to dinner and he’d play solitaire on my computer. At least, that’s all I’d thought he was doing.”

  Absently rubbing his injured shoulder, Greg gave her a considering glance.

  “I can see where you felt you had nothing to suspect,” he conceded. “The average person wouldn’t think someone who supposedly cares is actually conning them.”

  He eased his hand down.

  “So, you came home planning to work at the diner,” he concluded, still watching her.

  She blinked at his easy acceptance of how completely she’d been taken in.

  “Thank you,” she murmured.

  “For what?”

  “For not making it sound as if I lacked basic intelligence because I didn’t question what Brent was doing. Everyone else insisted that I must have been at least a little suspicious of his timing. Every night I worked late, he always showed up to take me to dinner.”

  “What did you think of that?”

  “I just thought he was being thoughtful.”

  Her response didn’t surprise him. “And the rest of your plans?

  “My only plans now are to work. I have to pay off my attorney,” she replied, mentally cringing at the size of the bill hanging over her head. Ten thousand dollars Brent had cost her. “I won’t be able to save a penny before then. Dora could only hire me part-time. Dinner shift Thursday through Sunday. The diner closes at eight, so I thought after work there, I’d see if I can pick up weekend shifts out at The Dig Inn.”

  The Dig, as everyone knew it, was a tavern near the stone quarry twenty minutes west of Maple Mountain. The idea of working there had occurred to her on her drive home from Greg’s office and seemed as good a way as any to add to her meager coffers.

  “Once I’m out of debt, I’ll probably leave again. With my family moved away, there really isn’t anything for me here.”

  The energy had leaked from her tone. Feeling as if it had just seeped out of her body, too, she offered an apologetic smile.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to dump all of that on you.”

  Especially the part about having given up her prized virginity to the louse, she thought. Once she’d started, though, the pressure of all she’d held in had simply given way. The man whose presence seemed as supportive as it did compelling had allowed a crack in the dam and everything had flooded out. But then, he was a doctor. It was his job to get people to open up and tell him where it hurt.

  The golden glow of early evening had left the air. With the sun no longer burnishing the tree tops on the hill, the light had turned the pale gray of dusk that muted their surroundings and had critters rustling leaves as they settled in for the evening.

  In that pale light, Jenny saw a vehicle coming around the curve in the road. She’d actually heard it first and glanced up as the tan Jeep with the big push-bar in front and police lights on top sailed by on its way into town.

  It was Joe. Seeing them sitting on the porch step, he stuck his arm out his open window and waved.

  Jenny and Greg both waved back.

  “Anyway,” she murmured, thinking she should probably just shut up about her past now. “Things can only go uphill from here. I’m having better luck already.”

  Pure skepticism slashed Greg’s brow. “How do you figure?”

  “By living in my grandma’s old house, I don’t have to pay rent.”

  The way he glanced toward the house made her think he questioned her definition of better. “What about your family? What do they think of you living without electricity or a phone? Or decent plumbing.”

  “The plumbing works well enough.” She could even take baths, now that she’d scrubbed out the old claw-foot tub in the bathroom. All she had to do was boil water on the woodstove, add it to the cold water she’d drawn and save out enough warm water to rinse her hair. The process had worked just fine last night. Even if it had taken forever.

  “I’ll get to the rest. Eventually,” she qualified. “Mom’s happy I’m fixing up the place.” Which was something she would eventually do, too. “I didn’t tell her what happened. All I said was that I was moving back because things didn’t work out.”

  Her mom had been relieved by that. Audibly so. She had never liked the idea of Jenny living alone in the city.

  “My sister and her family have problems of their own,” she confided, explaining why turning to them had not been an option. Their home and their lives had been crowded even before her mom had moved in with them. “I got myself into this mess. I’ll get myself out of it.”

  The breeze ruffled her hair as she tipped back her head and took a long deep breath.

  Greg promptly dragged his glance from the curve of her dark lashes against her cheek and the soft-looking line of her throat.

  He didn’t know too many people who would acknowledge anything positive about her present situation. Everything she’d worked for was gone. Her sense of trust was shot. And she was alone in a house that would depress most people just to look at. After what she’d said about having to pay off her attorney, he strongly suspected she was low on funds, too. Or, at least, being very frugal with whatever she had left.

  Yet, instead of sitting around feeling sorry for herself, she already had her old job back and wanted to get a part-time job to back up that one. She’d even taken a stab at brightening her surroundings. He didn’t know where she’d gotten them. From alongside the house perhaps, where he’d noticed other flowers struggling to survive through the weeds. But she’d planted two bright yellow mums in old pots and set them on either side of her front door.

  He wondered if she felt an affinity for the small, stunted blooms. Over the seasons, rains had beaten them down, weeds had choked them, they’d gone other times without water and the winters had frozen them. Yet, they’d managed to survive.

  She was clearly a survi
vor herself. He didn’t doubt that her plan for herself would somehow work out. He just didn’t like the idea of her working out at The Dig. It could get crazy out there on Saturday nights.

  The odd surge of protectiveness he felt at that thought caught him off guard. He could admit to being drawn by her refusal to be defeated. He could admire her bright optimism. He could feel a sense of relief for her that her gullibility hadn’t bought her even bigger problems. But feeling protective felt a little too…personal.

  He’d come to appease Bess—and his own curiosity. Since it sounded as if the worst was behind her, he needed to focus on practicalities.

  He needed an office manager. She needed a better job. Knowing she had a means to fix the roof over her head would just be an added bonus.

  “Okay,” he said flatly. “So you weren’t charged with embezzlement, theft and…”

  “Collusion,” she supplied, now that she’d explained.

  “Of course.” He gave a nod. She really had been naive, and far too trusting for her own good. Had inexperience been a crime, she’d be as guilty as sin. “So the job is yours if you want it,” he continued, thinking there was still a certain quiet innocence about her. “The clinic is funded by grants as well as the community, so the pay is a lot better than you’ll get at the diner. You won’t have to spend your weekends in a smoky tavern, either.”

  Or make that drive late at night and come back to this place, he thought, only to cut off the concern in his thoughts. He’d heard of people who’d moved into similar structural nightmares simply for the experience of renovating them. Though part of him insisted she needed a keeper, a more self-protective part insisted that she would be fine.

  “Being office manager of the clinic will also give you something to put on your résumé for when you do leave again.”

  Some of the constant anxiety haunting Jenny eased. She desperately needed the redeeming reference the job would bring. She wanted badly to pay off her attorney so she wouldn’t have that monthly reminder of how gullible she’d been. Yet at that moment what felt even more important than the opportunity Greg offered was that he believed her.

  “Thank you.” She practically sighed the word. “I’d love the job.”

  The tiny lines fanning from the corners of his eyes deepened with his smile “Good.”

  She smiled back, feeling better than she’d felt in a month.

  What Greg felt wasn’t so easy to define. Caught by the light in her eyes, he was aware of its warmth easing through him. He liked her smile. He liked that he’d been able to cause it.

  “So,” he said, reluctant to move.

  “So,” she murmured back, tempted to hug him.

  He needed to go. With her so close, looking so grateful, the temptation to touch her grew with each breath he drew. All he had to do was reach over and he could nudge back her hair just to see if those shining wisps felt as soft as they looked. He knew her skin felt like velvet. Her hands, anyway. He remembered the feel of them on his bare chest, his back, and the softness of her palm against his cheek.

  He knew the slenderness of her waist.

  The thought that he could probably span it with both hands occurred to him even as he jerked his thoughts from that unwanted place. Reaching for his sore arm as he leaned forward, he rose with a surge of lean muscle and turned to face her.

  She had just started to stand herself when he held out his hand.

  Setting aside the towel he’d returned, she slipped her slender fingers over his broad palm.

  “I’ll see you in the morning,” he said, pulling her up. “You’ll need to pick up all you can from Rhonda before she goes. Bess knows her stuff when it comes to medicine, but her eyes glaze over at insurance forms and computers.”

  His glance fell to their hands. Slowly, consciously, he pulled his back and pushed it into the pocket of his pants.

  His heat still burned her palm when she curled her fingers over it. “What time?”

  “Rhonda gets there at eight-thirty.”

  She said she would be there. A heartbeat later his glance skimmed her face, a muscle in his jaw jerked, and he told her he’d see her then.

  It seemed he still didn’t quite know what to make of her. At least, that was the impression Jenny had in the moments before he headed for his truck and pulled out of the drive. But she didn’t worry about it. She was too busy feeling grateful and relieved that she wouldn’t have to work at The Dig. As the last of the day’s remaining light waned and she turned to face her cheerless house, she wondered, though, if she should have mentioned that she had no intention of giving up her job at the diner.

  “I swear that man is getting more uptight by the minute.”

  At Bess’s muttering, Jenny looked up from where Rhonda had spread grant forms over the worktable between the computer desk and the wall of filing cabinets. She had spent the morning being familiarized with no fewer than a dozen different insurance forms, Medicare forms, state assistance forms and forms to request more forms. They hadn’t gotten around to the online forms yet, but Rhonda had insisted that the grant forms were more important.

  “Andy Kohl?” Jenny asked, thinking Bess must be referring to the patient who’d just left. She didn’t know much about the youngest of the Kohl brothers, other than that he worked as a mechanic at the quarry where he’d just put a nasty slice in his index finger.

  “I mean Dr. Reid. He just left for lunch,” she muttered.

  Jenny had no idea what Bess was talking about. She’d seen Greg less than five minutes ago and he’d seemed the same to her as he had all morning. The same as since she’d met him.

  “Maybe his shoulder is bothering him,” she suggested, thinking that could easily be the reason for the faint edge she sometimes sensed in him herself.

  “It’s not just his shoulder. He’s been like this for weeks. I think the only time he relaxes anymore is when he’s coaching T-ball or playing checkers with Amos.”

  Jenny had no trouble at all picturing him coaching little kids. A guy who wore duck socks would do that sort of thing. She just couldn’t quite picture him sitting around a checkerboard the way the cantankerous old men did at the general store. “He plays checkers?”

  “Not really,” Rhonda confided, her voice low despite the fact that the three of them were the only ones there at the moment. “He and Amos just call it that. Everybody knows he’s really teaching Amos to read.”

  “He’s been going to his house every Tuesday night for the past six months.” Light bounced off her reading glasses as Bess lifted them from where they dangled on their neck chain. Slipping them on, she sat down at the desk with her chart and picked up a pen. “Amos was never able to help his kids with their reading or their homework. He wants to be able to read to his grandchildren.

  “I gave Andy Kohl a tetanus shot,” she continued, segueing easily from Greg’s not-so-secret kindness. “The doctor put in eight stitches and wants him back in a week. Andy was in too much of a hurry to get back to work to make an appointment now. So, Jenny, you might want to call his wife in a couple of days if he hasn’t called himself to set up an appointment.”

  After adding those notes to the file, she tossed it on top of two others in the in-box and swiveled in her chair. “How are we doing with the grant renewal?”

  “I was just starting to explain what all we need to apply for it.” Rhonda lumbered toward the computer. Grabbing the back of the chair in front of it, she turned with all the grace her beach-ball belly would allow and lowered herself into it. “A lot of what you’ll need is right here,” she said, her fingers flying over the keyboard. “Budget. Expenses by quarter. A summary of scope of treatment. Population demographics. The deadline for this is the fifteenth of next month, but we want it in early. We just got another doctor through the Rural Health Corp and all we need for the contract with him to be final is to prove we can maintain our funding to pay him and keep the clinic running.”

  “It’s not easy getting a doctor here,” Bess expl
ained at Jenny’s quick frown of incomprehension. “Most of them are already in an established practice. The ones coming out of school want to stay near cities. Dr. Wilson stayed on way past the time he should have been practicing, and I can’t practice unless I’m working for a physician. We were starting to panic around here before we finally got Dr. Reid a couple of years ago. I know he talked up the place to Dr…. What’s his name again, Rhonda?’

  “Cochran.”

  “Dr. Cochran,” Bess continued. “He must have, to get the guy to take the job so quickly. He’s sort of a quiet man. Young wife. Two children. Dr. Cochran, I mean.”

  An impending sense of disappointment battled Jenny’s incomprehension. “I don’t understand. Why are you getting another doctor?”

  “Because Dr. Reid is leaving in four months,” replied Rhonda.

  “Three months and twenty-seven days,” Bess corrected, looking none too pleased by that.

  “I thought he’d taken over the practice.”

  “He did. But his contract is expiring.” The older woman held up her hands as if to ask what a person could do. “He came to us through the same program we’re getting the new one through. It helps doctors pay off their medical school loans in return for service in medically underserved parts of the country. He’s leaving the middle of December to return to Cambridge.” A frown deepened the wrinkles in her forehead. “He’s joining the family clinic where his girlfriend practices.”

  “She’s a pediatrician,” Rhonda dutifully supplied, printing out the file she’d pulled up. “Doctor Elizabeth Brandt. We’ve only seen her once, but she seems all right…for a city woman.”

  Considering how most locals truly felt about people from the city, with their often self-important ways and their tendency to regard those in Maple Mountain as “quaint,” Rhonda’s comment was practically praise.

  Bess wasn’t quite so forthcoming. The woman who had helped deliver most of the population under the age of twenty-five said only, “She’s pleasant enough, I suppose.”