Falling for His Next-Door Neighbor

by Liz Isaacson

  “I have two gifts for you tonight,” Emery whispered. “One of them just isn’t under the tree. I want to do it in private.”

  Archer very much liked the sound of that, and he pulled Emery a little closer. “I really would give you the stars, you know.”

  “I might ask you for them one day.” Emery laid her cheek against his chest. “But for today, I’m just glad you showed up with cookies.”

  He chuckled and Emery signaled to her sister that it was time for dinner.

  Emery kept one eye on Glenna and Archer as she added more milk to the mashed potatoes. They came together in a creamy consistency, and she added a dollop of butter and set the bowl on the counter. She had a tiny dining room table, so they’d serve themselves buffet-style and then sit down.

  She pulled the ham and the roasted vegetables from the oven, where she’d been keeping them warm, and lined everything up. With the rolls on the end, she called, “Time to eat.”

  Archer pushed Glenna into the kitchen, his eyes alight with love and laughter. Emery loved him, and a warm glow, like a low light bulb, switched on in her core. Though she wasn’t proud of what she’d done that had enabled her to spend these last four months with him, the result was wonderful.

  They ate with candles on the table and the scent of Christmas pine in the air. Halfway through dinner, snow began falling beyond the sliding glass door. Carrot Cake went over to the glass and yapped, turning back to look at Emery as if to say, “Look! Snow!”

  She giggled and went to the door, pressing one palm against the icy glass. She watched the flakes fall for a moment, absolute joy and wonder threading through her. She sighed as she bent to pick up Archer’s dog and returned to the table.

  He watched her with a knowing glint in his eye and asked Glenna about her new job at the city offices. Emery listened to her talk about the work there, and how much she liked it.

  “Emery drops me off every day,” she said, glancing at Emery. “But I’m hoping I can move out in the spring. Gold Valley doesn’t have as many services as Spokane, but if I can get an apartment downtown, I can just walk to work.”

  The warmth in Emery’s chest expanded at the increased confidence and happiness she saw in Glenna. After all, all Emery had ever wanted for Glenna was for her to be happy.

  “Let’s do gifts.” Archer practically leapt from the table and collected the presents from under the tree. He cleared dishes and replaced them with wrapped boxes, his entire person shining with radiance.

  “You go first Glenna,” he said.

  She ripped the green paper from his box, revealing her favorite books and movies. “Archer.” She squealed. “This is the best! Thank you so much.”

  He leaned over and kissed her forehead, and Emery’s opinion of him skyrocketed. “Your turn,” he said to her.

  She carefully took off the silver bow and removed the sparkly red paper. A boot box sat inside, and her chest cinched. “Boots?”

  “Just open the box.” He folded his arms, an edge of anxiety in his eyes.

  She lifted the lid and a beautiful pair of dark leather cowgirl boots sat inside, with red stitching in beautiful flower and horseshoe patterns. She inhaled sharply. “Oh, Archer, these are beautiful.” And they’d probably cost a fortune, which made her want to refuse them. She worked to shove that impulse down. She wanted to accept things from him. His help. His gifts. His love.

  “They have horseshoes on them,” he said. “To represent the ranch where we fell in love.”

  She met his eye. “I didn’t fall in love with you at the ranch.”

  “No?” His eyes held only amusement now.

  She shook her head, wishing she could have her private moment with him right now. “No, I fell in love with you right here. Maybe in the backyard one day. Or maybe listening to your blender every morning. Or maybe in Jenny, on our way up the ranch.”

  He stood and came around the table to kiss her. “Well, I fell in love with you on the ranch, so I hope you like the boots.”

  “I love them.” She pressed her forehead to his and cleared her throat. “Okay, my turn.” She handed out her gifts, glad when Glenna liked the new blouses Emery had bought for her to wear to her new job.

  Archer pulled the paper off his favorite candies—a giant bag of only red Starburst. He chuckled and ripped into the treats straightaway.

  “There’s more,” she said, nodding to the package wrapped in blue snowmen. He opened the smaller package and pulled out a pocketknife she’d had engraved with his initials. “I thought maybe you could use it on the ranch,” she said.

  He beamed at her. “Thanks, sweetheart.”

  Their attention turned to Glenna, and her gifts, and finally Archer pushed her back into the living room where she picked up her book and started reading.

  “We’re gonna go for a walk,” Emery said, wondering for the millionth time if that phrase bothered Glenna.

  She barely glanced up from her romance novel and said, “All right.”

  Emery exchanged a glance with Archer before running upstairs to get the gift she’d reserved for when they could be alone. Her heart pounded in her chest so hard she could barely breathe past it.

  The ring box seemed to weigh a thousand pounds, and she had no way to conceal it. She cursed herself for not grabbing her winter coat first. She cracked the lid, wondering if she could just tuck the ring in her pocket.

  The overhead lights glinted off the white gold of her grandfather’s ring. It wasn’t a wedding band, but Emery had been practicing what she was going to say to accompany the gift. Inlaid rows of yellow gold glimmered, and her hope and confidence increased.

  Archer had professed his love for her several times. He’d accept the ring. Still, a niggle of doubt tugged at her.

  “Emery?” he called up the stairs.

  She snapped the lid closed and palmed the ring box. After she’d hurried downstairs, he helped her into her coat, and she managed to pocket the box without him seeing. Outside, the frigid Montana air bit at her exposed skin. She wiggled her fingers into gloves and joined her hand with Archer’s.

  He sighed and said, “This has been a great year.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, maybe not the first half. When I lost that job at Silver Creek to you….” He inhaled and exhaled, his breath hanging in front of them as they strolled. “But it got better. We didn’t quit.”

  Soft light from the lamps along the sidewalk illuminated the snow. The bulbs closest to the clubhouse had been replaced with red and green bulbs, and the picturesque Christmas scene before her prompted Emery to pause.

  “So I have another gift for you,” she said, her recited lines coming easily to her mind. “It might be kind of strange, but it’s not what you think, I swear.” She pulled out the ring box and held it up. Archer simply stared at it.

  “I love you,” she said. “And this is my grandfather’s ring. I never met him, but my mom says he was one of the hardest workers she ever knew. And he was kind, and faithful, and you sound so much like him that I wanted you to have it.”

  He took the box but didn’t open it. “Are you proposing to me?”

  “No.” She giggled. “That’s why I said this wasn’t what you might think it was.” She touched his fingers. “Open it.”

  He did, peering at the ring for a few seconds before he pulled it out. “It’s really nice,” he said. “How do I wear it?”

  “It goes on the middle finger of your right hand.” She removed the ring from the box while he slipped his right hand out of his glove. “It’s not like a promise ring for men or anything. It’s just a….”

  “Family heirloom,” he said. He stared at his hand as she pushed the ring onto his finger. “A reminder of who to be, even when no one’s watching.”

  When he looked at her again, his eyes shone like wet glass. “It’s wonderful. Thank you.” He gathered her into his arms and it felt like he was drawing her right into his heart. He touched his lips to hers and said, “I love you,” b
efore claiming her mouth and kissing her so completely it didn’t matter if she never got another Christmas gift. She had Archer, and he was all she ever needed.

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  Sneak Peek! FALLING FOR HIS NURSE Chapter One

  Elliott Hawthorne opened the cabin door to a blast of air conditioning—thankfully—and the sight of Archer taping the top of a box. Unthankfully.

  “Hey.” He sighed and straightened his back with a groan. “You’re still helping me move tonight, right?”

  Elliott didn’t want to, but as he closed the door behind him so he wouldn’t air condition the ranch with all it’s September heat, he said, “Yeah.”

  “Don’t sound so happy about it.”

  “I’m not happy about it.” Elliott tried to smile to soften the words. “And I’m totally jealous you’re going up to Landon’s cabin on Bear Mountain.”

  Archer smiled, reminding Elliott why they’d gotten along so well as roommates. “So it’s nice?”

  Elliott also reminded himself that they would still be friends. Co-workers too. So Archer was getting married. Big deal. It was what adults did.

  Well, everyone except for Elliott, at least.

  “It’s really nice,” Elliott said. “It’s small, but intimate, and quiet, and it’s a great place to relax and unwind.” He wished he could go right now. Take his bay horse Precious with him and go. Skip Archer moving out. Skip Archer and Emery’s wedding. Skip the whole Labor Day picnic—which he would attend alone. Again.

  But the ranch was buzzing with all of the above. The cowboys didn’t get off the ranch much in the late summer and early fall because of the harvest, but Ty, the foreman, had announced last week that minimal chores would be done on Labor Day and no one was allowed to come back until evening.

  Elliott was planning to attend the picnic with the cowboys, and then he’d probably go visit his parents. He didn’t get down to see them much because of his workload, but they were starting to get older and he knew he needed to make more of an effort to help them.

  With two of his brothers in other cities, and one preparing to sell his carpet cleaning company and relocate, Elliott would be the only son left in Gold Valley soon enough.

  “Need some help?” he asked as he unwrapped a granola bar. He didn’t like to eat a lot for lunch, especially when it was really hot outside.

  “I think I’m good,” Archer said. “I moved up here with just two truckloads, so it shouldn’t take long.”

  “You’re buying me dinner after, right?” Elliott grinned at him.

  Archer rolled his eyes. “Steak, if I remember your conditions.”

  “Hey, I have to drive you to the church tomorrow too,” he said, scowling. “I deserve steak.”

  Archer’s expression turned sympathetic, and Elliott hated it. He appreciated it too, but he really didn’t need Archer’s pity.

  “So Andra didn’t work out.” He wasn’t really asking.

  “She…wasn’t my type.” Elliott was starting to think he didn’t have a type. That no matter how many women he went out with, none of them would ever be a fit for him.

  He’d had some luck with women in his early twenties, but the last five years had been a painful stretch of being single punctuated with first date after disastrous first date.

  “Emery can check around better this time,” Archer said, but Elliott shook his head and took off his black cowboy hat.

  “I’m not interested in getting set up again,” he said. “No more blind dates, no more friend-of-a-friend, none of it.” Elliott’s brown hair flopped around and he picked up his phone to text his barber. Maybe he could squeeze in a haircut between moving and the steak.

  With the appointment set and his granola bar gone, Elliott left Archer to finish the packing and went back out to the ranch.

  That evening, it took Elliott and Archer thirty minutes to load the boxes, clothes, and Archer’s bed into two pickup trucks. “See you down there,” Archer said, climbing behind the wheel of his smaller truck.

  Elliott lifted his hand and got into his ranch truck to follow Archer to Emery’s townhome. Another thirty minutes passed during the drive. Another thirty to get everything unloaded. Another thirty for the haircut.

  Elliott was starting to wonder if he could just continue in this pattern. Thirty minute increments where he didn’t have to worry about being single, where no one asked him who he was dating, where he didn’t have to concern himself with meeting someone.

  It sounded like a good plan, and he immediately adopted it.

  Another thirty minutes later, he had his prime rib in front of him, a beautiful mid-rare cook on the meat and a pile of garlic mashed potatoes that made his mouth water. He ate the green beans and baby carrots because his mother had trained him to eat his vegetables and he’d trained himself to get that part over with first.

  Archer asked questions about the cabin, and they talked about the ranch, and Elliott, drowsy on steak and potatoes, decided that it wasn’t so bad that he’d be getting a new roommate in a couple of weeks. That he’d have to live alone until then.

  Thank you for allowing me to be happy for him, Elliott thought as Archer set his credit card on the bill.

  His phone rang, and Elliott checked the screen. “It’s my brother,” he said to Archer. “I’ll meet you outside.” He stood and swiped open the call. “Hey, Joel.”

  “Elliott.”

  With that one word, Elliott’s insides iced. The food he’d eaten—which was a lot—solidified into cement.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Mom just called. Dad’s fallen down and they’re on their way to the hospital.”

  “Fell down? Where? How long ago?” He frantically patted his pockets to find his keys. Archer had planned to leave his truck at Emery’s and ride back up the canyon with Elliott, but new arrangements would have to be made.

  “About half an hour ago, and he was going to do some work in the backyard.”

  Guilt pulled through Elliott with the force of gravity. His father shouldn’t be doing yard work; Elliott should’ve been going down and helping his parents out, the way Ty had been for the past few years.

  “I’m on my way,” he told Joel, turning back to talk to Archer.

  One thirty-minute increment later, Elliott finally found his brother. They embraced, and Elliott didn’t like the worry in his brother’s brown eyes. “Broken hip,” Joel said. “He’s going into surgery within the hour.”

  Two increments, Elliott thought. He could wait that long. Wait and worry, which was exactly what he did. His mother—his petite, sandy-haired mother—came through the doors only fifty-two minutes later. She’d been crying, and Elliott swamped her in a tight hug, his own emotions threatening to overflow.

  “He’s okay,” she said as they all sat down in the waiting area. “There’s no reason for you boys to wait here. It’s getting late. Go on home and get some rest.”

  Neither Joel nor Elliott moved. They exchanged a glance, and Joel leaned forward. “Ma, why don’t you let Elliott take you home? He’ll stay with you and I’ll wait here to talk to the doctors when they come out of surgery.”

  Mom started shaking her head before Joel could even finish speaking, and Elliott knew she’d never leave Dad here.

  Joel tried again anyway. “Mom, he’ll be in there for a few hours. Elliott will bring you back when they finish.”

  Elli
ott put his hand on his mother’s. “Ma, come on.” To his surprise, she rose to her feet and went with him. Elliott tossed a look over his shoulder to his older brother, who nodded with a sad smile.

  A week later, Elliott woke in the cabin by himself. He made a pot of coffee for himself, something Archer had been doing for nine months. He wasn’t a morning person, so he’d let Archer set the alarms, make the coffee, and get them out the door. But he had to do all that himself now.

  He’d been down to the valley every evening since his father’s fall. His dad had been released yesterday, and Joel had called late last night to ask Elliott to come down again tonight to meet the nursing staff that would be assisting their father for the next several months.

  “I can’t be there after the end of the month,” Joel said. “I need you to handle it.”

  Elliott didn’t want to handle it. He was the youngest of the four boys, and the only one not married. He worked twelve hours a day, and adding the care of his parents to his plate felt like it was going to choke him.

  But he made it through the twelve hours and down the canyon to his parents’ house. Joel’s car was already there, as were two other vehicles, leaving Elliott to park on the street.

  Get through this one increment, he coached himself before he entered the house, the familiar smell of marinara meeting his nose. His mother had likely been cooking all day, adding her tears into the homemade sauce while she waited for evening and her sons to come.

  “Elliott,” his mom said, coming down the hall from the great room where he assumed everyone would be. She drew him into a tight hug. “We’re just fine,” she whispered.

  He drew back, confused. “Who says you aren’t?”