Taking a Chance

by Maggie McGinnis

  The scent of—something she couldn’t identify, actually—hit her nose, and her stomach growled. She hadn’t dared trust her gut with anything but dry cereal at the hotel this morning, and she suddenly realized how hungry she was.

  She also had the beginnings of a ginormous headache, given that her required daily caffeine dosage had ended up on her shirt, rather than in her stomach.

  “Lost already?” a deep voice came from behind her, making her whirl around in surprise. Oh, lordy. It was him—the ungodly hot guy who’d seen her naked before she’d even clocked in this morning.

  Jasper.

  She felt heat fly up her neck as he smiled, and she struggled to connect her brain to her mouth in order to answer.

  “No. Yes. Sort of. Maybe?”

  Oh, smooth, Em.

  “That was definitive.”

  “Sorry. I know where I am. Just not entirely sure how to get back to where I meant to be. You’re still—here?”

  “I’m back, actually.”

  She tipped her head. “Exactly how much coffee does this staff drink in a day?”

  “Not here to deliver coffee.” He laughed, pointing at a table over by a big bank of windows. “My father’s a resident. I’m here for lunch.”

  “Oh!” Emma looked toward the table where he was pointing. “I didn’t realize. I thought—well, coffee.”

  Oh, for God’s sake. She was a professional administrator with three master’s degrees. How had she lost the ability to form actual sentences?

  He smiled, and she pictured high school girls falling at his feet years ago. “I’m also the coffee guy, yes. But only because I want a happily caffeinated staff looking after my dad.”

  “Naturally.”

  “You settling in okay? Even though you’re lost and wearing pink pajamas on your first day?”

  Emma looked down. She’d almost forgotten about the scrubs. Now she could return to feeling self-conscious about them, thank you very much.

  “This place is a lot bigger than it looks.”

  “You could always try the bread-crumb approach, but the rats would probably get to the crumbs before you could get all the way back.”

  “Rats?”

  He laughed out loud, and the sound of it tickled her right between the ribs at just about the same moment she realized he was just tormenting her.

  “Not nice.”

  “Sorry.” He smiled. “The rats are actually under control now. We brought in some snakes to take care of them.”

  “Awesome.”

  He cocked his head. “So rats you fear, but snakes you don’t?”

  “I grew up in Florida. Unless it’s an Everglades python, I can handle the whole snake thing.”

  “Good.” He shivered. “Because they scare the hell out of me with their slithery little hissy selves.”

  Emma laughed at his expression and his word choice. “You’d never survive down South.”

  “No plans to, so we’re good.” He winked. “Excited for snow? We could see some practically any day now.”

  She took a deep breath. “I’m intrigued by the idea of snow. I’m not intrigued by the thought of driving in it.”

  “Understandable. Especially in that rental they gave you. Too bad the airport isn’t big enough for any of the real agencies to bother having a booth. You’re stuck with whatever Smitty pulls off his used car lot.”

  “Fantastic.” Emma sighed. She really should have rented a car in Bozeman and driven the remaining hours north, rather than taking the last-leg cloud-hopper that had touched down at a one-room airport that was only open from ten till four. But she hadn’t made the reservation, so she’d been at the mercy of Galway’s travel agency.

  “You’ll be fine. Snow isn’t that tough to drive in, once you get used to it.”

  “Does it really, seriously snow up here this early in the fall?”

  “Almost always.” He shrugged like it was no big deal. “But you never know. Might hold off till October, if you’re lucky.”

  She mentally counted out twelve weeks, realizing she was going to be here till almost Thanksgiving. There would definitely be snow-driving in her future.

  “You have a Triple-A provider out here, right? Just asking?”

  “Smitty, yep.” He laughed. “So you may want to invest in some cross-country skis to get up this…mountain if the car doesn’t make it.”

  “In my defense, most of Florida is below sea level. I stand by my assertion that this is a mountain.”

  “Absolutely. But if you’re ever bored some weekend and want to take a drive to the real ones, let me know. I’d be happy to take you out to the foothills.” He stopped like he feared he’d said too much. “Or—you know—give you directions.”

  “Um, thank you.” She looked around self-consciously. “I think, since I can’t yet find my way around even this building, I’d probably better not attempt a drive to the foothills.”

  “Gotcha.” He looked behind her and waved. “Hey, Archie. How are those ribs holding up?”

  Emma looked behind her to see a crumbly-looking elderly man sitting in a wheelchair, dark blue baseball cap on his head.

  “I’ll live, they said.” Archie smiled.

  “Never gonna let me get at that life insurance, are you?”

  “Damn right.”

  “You need a push?”

  Archie shook his head. “Hell, no. You’d probably push me into traffic.”

  Jasper laughed. “Can’t say I haven’t considered it.”

  Emma felt her eyes widen at his words. What the—?

  Archie looked up at her. “You taking Bette’s place while she gets her parts rearranged?”

  “Um, yes?” Emma looked at Jasper for guidance, but he just smiled, not offering any. She put out her hand. “I’m Emma Winthrop.”

  Archie shook her hand, and his grip surprised her. Maybe it shouldn’t have, given the military insignia on his hat.

  “Archibald Tennyson. Pleased to meet you.”

  “Thank you for your service, sir.”

  “You’re welcome.” He nodded as he pushed forward and looked up at Jasper. “She’ll do. Volleyball tomorrow?”

  “You bet.” Jasper clapped him on the shoulder. “I’m coming for your kidneys this time.”

  “Eh, I only need one of ’em.”

  After Archie had joined a table of three other men, Jasper turned back toward Emma. “He’s a good guy. You’ll like him.”

  “Already do. So why are you trying to kill him? Just curious?”

  Jasper smiled. “Running joke. He’s filthy rich, but his kids are miserable leeches. He rewrote his will a year ago and erased them from it.”

  “Ouch. And he’s leaving his riches—to you?”

  “Sort of.” He shrugged like it was no big deal. “So I joke about bumping him off so I can get at his millions, and he counters that he’s going to live till he’s a hundred and twenty. It works.”

  Emma nodded. “And do you threaten to bump off a lot of my residents? Or are you choosy?”

  “Only the rich ones. Obviously.”

  “Charming.”

  “Hey, they’ve only been your residents for three hours. Even you might want to bump off a few of them by the time you’re done.”

  Em felt her eyes widen again, but this time she shook her head, not rising to his bait. “We’ll see, I guess. So far, the only person who seems to cause trouble around here is the alternative-activities director—for lack of a better term.”

  “True.”

  “So, volleyball tomorrow? How’s that going to work?”

  Jasper sighed, but he was still smiling. “If it were up to Tess, she’d line them up and give them balloons to bounce back and forth like they’re two years old. They hate it.”

  “And yet it’s an accepted, safe, appropriate activity for this population.”

  “This population is still people. Adult people.” His voice took on a serious tone that warned her silently to back off. “And they don’t
like being treated like brain-impaired children, for the most part.”

  She cleared her throat, stung, feeling like she’d been put in her place.

  She didn’t like it all that much.

  She was the expert here. He was just the son of a resident.

  But he was obviously a fixture, and she’d probably better be careful not to piss him off, especially before lunchtime on the first day of her three-month tenure.

  “So what do you do to make volleyball more palatable?”

  “Arm them.” He shrugged carelessly.

  “Arm them? With what?”

  “Toothpicks. And whipped cream.”

  “I—I don’t follow.” Emma shook her head.

  “You ever pop a balloon full of whipped cream?”

  “No-o. Um, no. Can’t say as I have.”

  “It’s a hell of a lot of fun. And they get a lot more exercise trying to douse each other with whipped cream than they do trying to bounce a damn balloon over a line ten times.”

  Emma bit her lip, trying not to smile as she pictured the scene. “And who cleans up the mess afterward?”

  “You hear them laughing all the way down the hallway afterward, fifteen minutes with a mop is a small price to pay.”

  “So you clean up.”

  “Hell, yes. Katrina would have my head if I left whipped cream on the floor. Vonnie, too. And Tess, if she ever found out.”

  “How exactly do you keep this information from her?”

  “Well…she’s kind of an office-y sort of activities director. Lots of planning, not a lot of, well, activities. Plus, she’s on maternity leave.”

  “But I saw the calendar. It looked great!”

  It had. Community time every day, physical activities morning and afternoon, social events in the evenings…it was exactly the sort of calendar that was up to Galway’s standards—active, varied, and inclusive.

  “You’ll see. A lot of those things end up mysteriously canceled.” Jasper shrugged, then pointed toward his father’s table as he turned to go. “I should go join Dad before he forgets who I am, but good luck, okay? You’ll do just fine here at Shady Acres.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But seriously?” He turned back around. “If you have any pull with the powers that be, could we work on the name? Sounds like a frigging graveyard.”

  Chapter 5

  “So you survived your first day?” Ari’s voice was a welcome one at the end of the day as Emma sat in her temporary office, trying to clear a space on the desk.

  “After a not-very-auspicious start, yes.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Yeah. Suffice to say I met the hottest man I’ve ever seen, but I did so without my shirt on.”

  Ari squeaked on the other end of the phone. “You are not serious.”

  “I am so serious.”

  “This is so unfair.”

  “Define unfair! Did you not hear the part about most embarrassing moment ever?”

  “I stopped listening after hottest man I’ve ever seen. The rest was white noise.”

  “Love you, too, Ari.”

  Ariana laughed. “So besides starting the day half-naked—which, wow, can’t even fathom how that happened—how is the place?”

  “Well, you know how I pictured this sort of backwoods, run-down-in-a-quaint-way sort of nursing home?”

  “Not that?”

  “It’s not that at all. It’s huge, first of all. I got lost four times today, and I’m not even sure how it happened. The home is basically a square with a courtyard in the middle, but then there are all of these extra hallways shooting off in different directions.”

  “I’m sure you’ll get it figured out soon enough.”

  “Either that or I’m going to have to start leaving a trail of bread crumbs.” Emma smiled to herself as she remembered Jasper’s rat comment from earlier in the day.

  Ari sneezed. “So, hot guy. Dish.”

  “Are you already sick again?”

  “Job hazard, but it’s okay. My excellent salary makes up for the constant illness. But listen to you! You’re the one on antibiotics this time.”

  “Because I caught your strep.”

  “Details. Hot guy. Go.”

  “His father is a resident here.”

  “Nice. So chances are good you’ll run into him again, then? Maybe with more clothes on next time?”

  “Funny. Thank you.”

  “Any chance you checked for a ring?”

  “Ari, half of married men don’t wear them. That’s no longer a reliable marker.”

  “Did he have one on?”

  “No.”

  Ari laughed. “Ha! You checked!”

  “Maybe.” Emma rolled her eyes. “But I wasn’t obvious about it.”

  “Hey, wait a minute. I don’t care how hot he is, you are not going to fall in love and move to Montana.”

  “Because we’re not getting ahead of ourselves at all?”

  Ari sighed. “Please tell me you at least had a good bra on.”

  “My new purple Victoria’s one.”

  “Then he’s a goner. Nicely done.” Ari sneezed again. “So besides those mountains—which I think I’m going to need a daily picture of, by the way—what’s it like out there? Does the sky actually look bigger?”

  “It’s kind of surreal, actually. I mean, we’re used to blue skies, but it’s just—I don’t know—different. The air feels different. Crisper or something.”

  “Because you’re not walking out the door and into a sauna? Go figure. My classroom was like the Amazon jungle today. Do you have any idea how a ninety-three-degree classroom with twenty-two sweaty kids in it smells?”

  Emma laughed. “Almost as bad as the maintenance guy who keeps promising to fix the air conditioning?”

  “Exactly. So.” Ari paused. “Hear from your parents yet?”

  “They’re in Paris.”

  Yes, that was why they hadn’t managed to respond to her news about her temporary gig. It didn’t have anything to do with disinterest…or disappointment.

  “Well, screwez-vous them, then.”

  Emma smiled. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. Unless I win the Nobel Prize for Elder Care, there’s nothing I’m going to do to outshine Princess Annabelle, and I’m okay with that.”

  “I know you are but still.”

  “Non-issue, Ari.” Emma fidgeted with her earring, then dropped her hand when she realized she was doing it. She might say she was fine with it all, but she knew her body language said otherwise.

  “Okay, I should get to bed so I can deal with my overheated urchins tomorrow. Before I go, though, tell me who hot guy looks like.”

  “I can’t decide. I’m getting a Hemsworth vibe mixed with an Eastwood vibe mixed with that guy from the cop show you love.”

  “Now you’re just trying to make me jealous. Also, see if he has a brother.”

  Emma laughed. “G’night, Ari. I’ll send you some pics from downtown later, if I manage to find it. First I have to make a dent in the piles of paper in this office, though.”

  “Hey, Em?”

  “Don’t even talk to me right now about burning the midnight oil and yadda yadda, woman who was at school till ten o’clock last night decorating her classroom.”

  “Fine. But seriously, you know what?”

  “I’m afraid to ask.”

  “You’ve got three months to just…whatever! Nobody from corporate looking over your shoulder, no proposals to present, no deadlines to meet. You can totally leave the ladder-climbing to the other peons for twelve weeks, and just maybe—I don’t know—try to enjoy yourself out there?”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  “I’m serious, Em. Maybe there’s a reason they sent you out there. Maybe they see something in you that you don’t see in yourself. Have you thought about that?”

  “Um, no. Pretty sure they saw ‘Emergency Surgery’ on someone’s leave form, and then said, ‘Who has no life and can leave at a moment’s notice?
Ooh! Emma Winthrop can!’ ”

  “You’re impossible.”

  “I’m a realist.”

  “Fine. Have a miserable time, suffer through your twelve weeks, and do not talk to the hot guy ever again. It’s a plan.”

  Emma laughed. “I can do two of those things.”

  “Ha. You can do the third, as well, Ms. Winthrop.”

  —

  “All set with that?” Jasper reached over the counter for Liam’s mug the next morning, anxious to clean up from the early rush and get up the hill to see his dad.

  “No.” Liam shook his head. “And what’s the hurry? You’re like a hamster on speed back there this morning.”

  “Just being efficient. I need to get up to see my old man before the physical therapist takes him hostage.”

  “He okay?”

  “Far as I know, yep.”

  “Any other reason you need to get up there in a hurry?”

  Liam’s voice was nonchalant as he lifted his mug to his mouth, averting his eyes, but Jasper heard an undertone.

  “No reason, no. Why are you asking?”

  “I don’t know. Might be the clean shirt.”

  Jasper looked down at his standard-issue flannel. Ten years ago, he’d had twenty high-end, crisp white dress shirts that went under one of his ten designer suits with attorney-appropriate neckties. Now he prided himself on a closet full of comfort—flannel, cotton, and not a tie in sight.

  “My shirts are always clean, dumbass.”

  “Maybe, but today it looks like you combed your hair, too. There’s a woman, isn’t there?”

  Jasper reached for his mug. “Gimme that. You’re cut off.”

  Liam laughed. “Hit a nerve?”

  “Nope. And there isn’t a woman within fifty miles who’d have me.”

  “Smart.”

  “Thank you. Price is double on coffee today, by the way.”

  “I’ll pay it.” Liam laughed again. “But first, you gotta tell me the story about the new nursing home director.”

  Jasper froze. “What story?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Liam poured himself another mug from the carafe on the counter, then made a show of settling his ass on a stool, eyebrows up. “The one about how your lack of knocking skills got you into hot water yesterday?”

  Oh. That story.

  Shit.

  Jasper rolled his eyes as he turned to the sink. The only thing his lack of knocking skills had gotten him was a desire for cold water…of the cold shower variety.