By five thirty Nora was on her way back to the clinic with two pies. The first was a mini key lime. She had finally visited Pie with Pearl, owned by Pearl Brunetta, whom she’d met that first day at the salon. Pearl, it turned out, did several of her most popular pies in mini format, which Nora could already tell was going to pose a problem for her. But if the warm-from-the-oven coconut rhubarb Pearl had forced her to sample while standing in the shop was any indication, it was going to be an enjoyable problem.
The second pie was a pizza with chanterelles, roasted garlic, and heirloom tomatoes from Lawson’s. The pizza menu, she had learned, was new, the result of Law’s trying to branch out beyond just booze. Nora was planning to support Law generously in this endeavor.
And speaking of the pizza, hadn’t Law said that Jake had built the outdoor oven? Maya had called him the town’s fairy godfather when it came to building, and in Nora’s experience that was proving true.
Jake was leaning against the brick façade of the building that housed the clinic when Nora arrived. He was so big, it sort of looked like he was holding up the building, but that was ridiculous.
She unlocked the clinic and said, “You want to eat first?”
“Nah. Unless you’re hungry, let’s leave it till I’m done.”
“We’re done.”
“What?”
“We. Because I’m helping you.” When he looked like he was about to protest, she cut him off. “Humor a girl who’s on a self-sufficiency kick. I clearly have no idea what I’m doing, but I’m a decent worker bee.”
He handed her a paintbrush. “Okay, but we can only do the primer today. It will have to dry before the paint goes on. So it really is going to go fast.”
They got into a rhythm, and he was right about it going quickly. After sanding off the biggest blobs of dried paint, he showed her what to do. As they worked, he told her about the town’s three annual festivals. The upcoming Mermaid Parade she’d already heard about—the whole town seemed to be eagerly anticipating it. There was also a Raspberry Festival earlier in the summer that she’d missed, and a locals-only secret party the first weekend in October.
“They call it the Anti-Festival,” he said.
“Anti as in ‘against’?” she asked.
“Yeah, you’ll see how the town sort of has a seasonal rhythm. There are a lot of tourists and day-trippers in the summer, but it drops off pretty dramatically. Seasonal businesses close, and everyone sort of hunkers down for the winter.”
“So this festival marks the transition?”
“Yeah. It started as a joke—hence the name. The idea is that the tourists are gone, and the locals have their own party. There are fund-raisers for local causes—cakewalks, except with pie, a bachelor auction. Maya stages a play.”
That was awfully cute. It sounded like something out of Gilmore Girls or a Hallmark movie. “Where does this happen?”
“Out on the strip of parking lots behind the businesses on the north side of Main Street. Everyone shuts down their storefronts. They try to make it look like the town has been abandoned. It’s actually kind of funny. They get really aggressive about keeping out anyone but locals.”
“I wonder if they’ll let me attend. I’m only here for two years.”
“Yeah, I heard you’re leasing the practice. They’ll probably have to consult their bylaws, but I bet they’ll make an exception for you.”
She used her brush to point to the big can of paint nearby—not realizing they were only going to prime today, she’d brought it out. “You know, I think I bought too much paint, even with me spilling a ton of it the other day. That can is still three-quarters full.”
“Yeah, you could have done with just a liter, probably.”
“I’m thinking now that I’m a painting expert”—she made sure he saw her eye roll so he’d know she was kidding—“I might take what’s left over and try to paint that horrible metal chair in my backyard. Which is dumb. I should probably buy new lawn chairs.”
“Nah, that’s a great old chair. You just need to sand the rust off before you paint. I’ll help.” He paused. “Unless that’s a violation of the self-sufficiency thing.” Another pause. “Which, for the record, I completely respect.”
God, this guy was too much. Everybody here was too much. “Why is everyone in this town being so nice to me? Pearl wouldn’t let me pay for my pie just now. CJ offered to do a house call when I need my roots touched up. And that’s just today. There must be a catch.”
“It’s that two-year thing, probably. I think everyone just wants you to stick, you know? This town really needs a doctor.”
“Oh, so I’m just a warm body with a medical degree?” she joked.
“No. I think Dr. Baker was the warm body with the medical degree, and now that you’re here, everyone is realizing exactly how much that was true.” He paused. “That sounds uncharitable. He was a nice enough guy. He was just…not getting right in there on the town green when a tourist was going into labor, you know?”
“The scientist in me needs to point out that my clinic isn’t even open yet, so all these favorable conclusions are premature.”
“Nah. You can just tell.”
Well. She liked that assessment. “Speaking of tourists in labor on the town green, Sawyer told me that Colleen called the police station looking for both my name and your name—she said she’d forgotten them.”
“Huh. I wonder why?”
“Maybe so she can send us thank-you notes? Name her kid after us?”
“Jake Nora?”
“Nora Jake!” she teasingly corrected. “It is a girl, after all.”
“Nora Jacobina?”
She wasn’t sure why she found that so funny, but she had to pause in her painting because she was cracking up. “Nora Jacobina sounds like a pilgrim.”
He chuckled, and they settled into a companionable silence as they worked. They’d each started on one end of the desk and had gradually been making their way toward the center—toward each other.
“See?” he said as his left arm brushed her right. Goose bumps rose on her flesh despite the fact that it was a warm evening. “Piece of cake.”
“Wow. That was anticlimactic. I guess it’s time for dinner. I was prepared to work a lot harder than that.”
He stood back and examined their work. “Let’s take the food and paint to your place and do that chair.”
She started to object. It was a reflex. But as she’d wondered the other day with respect to the deck, why? Someone offered to help her, and something inside her automatically rose up and said no? Wasn’t she supposed to be not doing that anymore?
“Okay. We can eat on my glorious new deck and listen to the lake.”
An hour later, her good-as-new chair was drying in the warm twilight, and they were sitting on the edge of her deck, eating pizza.
“This is so good,” she said. “Even cold.”
“Yeah, Law has been wanting to start serving food for a while. I think he’s onto something.”
“My favorite is the Hawaiian—he uses this ridiculous pancetta that melts in your mouth and grills the pineapple with this balsamic glaze. But I didn’t know if I should inflict that on you. So many people object so vehemently to pineapple on—”
“Nora?”
Oh hell no. She shot to her feet and looked wildly around the yard. She had to have imagined that.
“Nora? Hello?”
Crap. She was too content, wasn’t she, with her pizza and her chair and her deck? Apparently so, because the Ghost of Nora’s Past was here to take her down a few pegs.
Yap, yap, yap! Despite her dismay, her heart did a happy little leap at that familiar sound.
It was coming from the front yard. She leaped to her feet. But as she made her way to the gate that divided the backyard from the front, she slowed, suddenly feeling clumsy, unsure of her footing.
“Everything okay?” Jake’s voice came at her as if through a fog.
She must have looke
d as unsteady as she felt because suddenly he was at her side—which was a good thing. When Rufus appeared from around the front of the house, Jake had to physically hold her up. But just for a second. She ordered herself to get her act together and took a step away from him and toward Rufus. Generally speaking, toward Rufus was not her preferred direction these days, but she needed to assert her dominance. This was her territory. Her crappy house. Her new life.
Which did not include Rufus.
So she walked the last few steps to the gate, put her hands on her hips, and summoned her best ice queen tone. “What are you doing here, Rufus?” She tried to keep her eyes—eyes she hoped were radiating judginess and disdain—on Rufus, but she couldn’t help dropping them for a second. As soon as she made eye contact with the little basset hound in Rufus’s arms, he yapped happily at her in greeting. She suppressed a smile.
Which wasn’t all that hard to do, because Rufus had started toward her. She held up a hand. She was the one regulating how much distance there was between them. “I asked you what you were doing here.”
That galvanized Jake, who covered the short distance between them until he was once again at her side. He didn’t do or say anything, though. He just stood there, his eyes moving between her and Rufus, assessing. It occurred to her that some men, in the name of honor or chivalry or whatever, would rush in and be all, “The lady asked you a question, asshole,” but Jake merely stood there, his solid, wordless presence having the same steadying effect it’d had during the emergency birth.
But she wasn’t going to lie. The fact that her silent support system was a gorgeous man-god was not going unappreciated here.
She turned and raised her eyebrows pointedly at Rufus.
“I need you to take the dog,” he said quickly.
It was all she could do not to lunge for the little creature she had come to love so much. She forced herself to be cool. “Why?”
Rufus was clearly uncomfortable, alternately kicking the ground in front of him and eyeing Jake like a bratty little boy who’d been caught doing something stupid by a cool, older kid. “It turns out that basset hounds are one of the worst breeds for people with allergies.”
Oh hell no.
She knew exactly what he was getting at, but she decided to play dumb. “But you’re not allergic to dogs.”
“It’s not their fur so much as their dander, which I guess is extra potent or something.”
“And you have that vacuum cleaner that cost as much as a used car. You do love that vacuum cleaner.” It was one of the objects he’d insisted on. A top-of-the-line Miele even though all they’d had to vacuum were area rugs—the actual floor of the apartment had been hardwood.
“And basset hound drool is a factor in allergies, too. You remember how much he drools.”
A wave of revulsion washed over her. He couldn’t seem to find the strength or the balls or the whatever in himself to take responsibility for what he was actually saying. To say what he was actually saying.
Her sister had told her that there was a formula for how long it took to get over someone—a month for every year you’d been together. By that metric, it was supposed to take five months for Rufus to be in her wake. As much as she hated the fact that he had just shown up uninvited at her house, she also kind of appreciated that his doing so was putting her on the accelerated plan.
Okay, she was done here. “Rufus, I think what you’re trying to say is that the resident you cheated on me with is shacking up with you a month after I walked in on said cheating, and that she’s allergic to dogs?”
He turned bright red, which she enjoyed, but he didn’t answer.
“Is that right?” she goaded. She felt a hand on her lower back. Jake’s, resting lightly. A visceral reminder of his presence, should she need it.
“Chloe is allergic to dogs,” Rufus mumbled.
She laughed.
Then she laughed some more, because she was happy that she could laugh about this so soon. She was totally on the advanced track here. She might be lonely, but she wasn’t lonely for Rufus, which she was going to take as a win. “Hand him over.”
Jake leaned over and whispered in her ear, “You want this dog?”
She nodded. She did want the dog. The dog was the only damn thing in the whole split she’d wanted, but she hadn’t presumed to ask because he was Rufus’s—from way before she came on the scene.
Although…even though she had just been thinking how she appreciated Jake’s low-key approach, his silent but steadfast support, part of her wanted to see what he would do or say if she said no, she didn’t want the dog. How fast would Jake have Rufus running away with his tail between his legs—pun intended?
But no. She was happy to play power games with asshole ex-boyfriends, but she couldn’t do that to loyal canine companions.
Rufus edged forward and handed her the dog over the gate, keeping his eyes on Jake. Once the transfer had been made, he took a big step back and said, “I have a box of his stuff in the car. I’ll leave it on the porch.”
“Hang on,” she called, and he paused in his retreat. “Repeat after me. ‘I’ll leave a box of his stuff on the porch, and I swear on Chloe’s perfect, perky resident boobs that I will never contact you again, Nora.’”
Jake guffawed, and Rufus rolled his eyes.
“I’m not kidding, Rufus. Say it, or find someone else to take the dog.” It was an empty threat, but she was banking on him not knowing that.
“I’ll leave a bag of his stuff on the porch, and I swear on Chloe’s perfect, perky resident boobs that I will never contact you again, Nora,” he mumbled, not making eye contact.
She turned away from him for the last time. It really felt like the last time, and it felt…good. She smiled.
Jake whistled and took a step back.
“That,” she said, “was Rufus. Species: disgusting ex-boyfriend who makes me question my taste in everything.” She pressed her nose to the fur on the dog’s head, inhaling his comforting, familiar smell. “And this is Sir Mick. Species: miniature basset hound.”
“Sir Mick as in Jagger?” Jake asked, still reeling a little from watching Nora take down her ex in such spectacular fashion.
“Yep.” She kissed one of the dog’s long, floppy ears, and she must have interpreted Jake’s snort correctly, because she added, “Named by Rufus long before I came on the scene.”
“Not that there’s anything wrong with the Stones,” he said, following her around to the front of the house.
“I know, but they’re not the Beatles—am I right?”
“You are right.”
She eyed the box on the porch.
“Let me get that.”
They went in the front door, and Nora set about unpacking the box and filling a water bowl for Mick.
After Mick had had a drink, they went back outside and sat on the edge of the deck. She looped Mick’s leash around her ankle. He gazed pitifully at her pizza and started whining.
“You, my little friend, are supposed to be on a diet, but from the look of things, Rufus has not been prioritizing your BMI.” She looked out at the yard. “I don’t suppose you do fences? I suddenly find myself in need of a fence.”
Not really. Like decks, fences didn’t really fall into the fine carpentry category he and Sawyer focused on. “Sure. And you know, your bathtub desperately needs to be recaulked. I can do that for you, too, if you like.”
“What about dishwasher repair? Do you do that, too? Because mine is toast.”
“I’m not an expert, but I can have a look. And you have some exposed wires in a corner of the living room. I assume they’re not live, but we should make sure.”
She snorted. “I was kidding. I figure a fence is my problem to solve, but all that other stuff is my landlord’s job. I sent him a list.”
“Which I can pretty well guarantee he’ll ignore.”
“So you’re just going to do it for me?”
Pretty much. He shrugged.
; “Well, that’s nice of you. Freakishly nice. And I’ll absolutely hire you for the fence, but let me at least try to get Harold to take responsibility for the rest.”
Mick, who, once he’d given up on begging for pizza, had curled up and fallen instantly asleep at Nora’s feet, emitted a loud snore. She looked at him affectionately. “I wasn’t a dog person before I met Rufus, and Mick is a pain in the butt. He snores and drools, and he’s got all kinds of geriatric ailments. But damn, I missed him.”
“Dogs’ll do that to you.”
“You have one?”
“Used to, but it went with the ex-wife.”
“That sucks.”
“You know, I didn’t actually want her. I mean, I like dogs. But Daisy—that was the dog—and Jude adored each other. Seeing Daisy without Jude was…” He didn’t know how to explain it.
“Like a wound that never healed?”
“Yeah.”
And this was why he was here. This was why he had built her a deck. Why he was going to talk her into letting him repair her dishwasher and caulk her bathtub. Because, for the first time in four years, he wanted to talk about Jude. With her. It was unprecedented and a little bit weird, but he was going with it. Even if it made the waves come. Because they came anyway, didn’t they?
“You want to see a picture of him?” She nodded, and he pulled out his wallet. “This was the August before he died. His mom had this silly costume made for the Mermaid Parade.”
She took the picture from him and examined it with a smile. “He looks like you.”
“You think?” People said that a lot, but he also saw a lot of Kerrie in their son.
“Totally. The eyes especially. If he’d lived long enough to grow his hair, you could have had a mini-me.”
He laughed. “My ex wouldn’t have allowed it. She was always after me to cut my hair.”
“Really? It sort of seems like your signature thing.”
“It definitely helps me maintain my hermit image.” He was gratified when she smiled. “I started growing it in high school because I had a fling with this older tourist one summer, and she was into long hair. Then I just got used to it.”
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