Leaving the family business had been the hardest thing he’d ever done. The scowl etched into his father’s face was burned into his memory. As the only son, he was the golden child, and he’d done what was expected until the expectations noosed tightly around his neck and threatened to strangle him.
He’d disappointed many people, but it came down to them versus him. That one moment of selfishness changed his life and his outlook on the world. He loved his family, but Aspen Cove was where he belonged. “My sights are fine. My life is perfect. What about yours, Lydia? When was the last time you were truly happy?”
Chapter Seven
Lydia didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. It was laughable that a man as good-looking and seemingly intelligent as Wes could find his bliss in a town as small as Aspen Cove. Heartbreaking that he could see her misery when she tried so hard to mask it with a smile.
“Who says I’m not happy.” She gave him a smile her orthodontist would have used for an ad. “This smile doesn’t lie.”
“I’ll believe you when that smile reaches those beautiful blues of yours.” He pushed off the sink and walked toward the hall. Over his shoulder he said, “I’ll be out front if you need me.” He looked at Sarge whose snout nuzzled her feet. “You coming, boy?”
When the dog ignored him, Wes turned and left. The last thing she heard was him mumbling something about loyalty.
“My priorities are fine,” she said to no one, but she was used to talking to air. She’d spent the past few months talking to herself. Too bad her self-counsel hadn’t been effective.
Lydia sat in silence and thought about his question. When was the last time she was truly happy? Surely it couldn’t have been that long ago. When she pressed her memory, all she came up with was the day she started her residency and found out Dr. McKay would be her mentor. He’d saved her life. From that point on, her happiness was woven tightly to his. Sadly she was a convenient option for him, not a choice.
When his apartment building caught fire, she happily offered him a place to live. When he told her he hated scheduling the staff, she did it for him. He hadn’t loved her, only what she did for him. After their breakup, she realized everything she missed about him hadn’t been there in the first place.
She knew what happiness looked like for everyone else, but only had a vague outline of what it looked like for herself.
She opened her computer and typed in the password for Wi-Fi. Wasn’t it time she went after her perfect world—a world that offered a top position in an urban emergency room? Where days off included friends and wine. Where the right man saw her for what she offered the world not what she offered him. Maybe a perfect world wasn’t obtainable, but she’d settle for pretty damn close and that meant she needed a job.
Three hours later she was still at the kitchen table when Wes walked in bare-chested and sexy as hell. He had a body fine-tuned by hard labor. She hated to compare every man to Adam, but he was the only man she could use as a reference. Side-by-side there would be no similarity. Adam was fit but in a healthy diet sort of way. Wes was exercise art, carved from stone or forged from steel.
“Still searching for the dream?” Sweat dripped from his brow. He lifted the faucet handle and ducked his head under the stream of water. When he stood, droplets splashed everywhere with one hitting her cheek. “Sorry about that.” He pulled two clean towels from a nearby drawer and tossed one her way. Once he’d dried his face, he chucked the wet towel into the pile in the corner. “I finally got that window aligned and didn’t need more stitches.”
“Hard to believe those were your first.” She couldn’t take her eyes off his chest. A light smattering of hair trailed down and disappeared into the waistband of his worn jeans. Jeans that hung precariously low from his hips. One tug and they’d lie in a pool of denim at his feet. She shook the thought from her head and brought her eyes to his face.
His tongue slipped out to catch a drop of water on his lip. “For firsts, you were really good.” The damn man winked at her and she nearly fell from her chair. What the hell was wrong with her? She had put a kibosh on men for now. Besides, Wes wasn’t even her type. She liked tall, dark and dashing. He was tall, fair, and oh so fine.
“You okay?” He looked at her like she’d gone pale; impossible with the way his heat swirled around her.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
His face scrunched up like a shar-pei. “Your face looks like this.”
“My face does not look like that.” She adjusted the screen of her computer so she could see her reflection. He was right. She’d frowned so deeply her eyebrows nearly touched.
He turned his back and opened the refrigerator. “You hungry?”
A glance at his broad back had her nodding. “For food?” slipped out without thought. “Yes, I’m hungry.” She needed to get herself under control. One look at a half-naked man made her mouth water, and food was the last thing on her mind. “All I had was a muffin, and that was hours ago.”
He shut the door and turned around. “Let me get a clean shirt and I’ll take you to the diner.”
She wanted to tell him not to bother with the shirt, but Maisey wouldn’t let him inside without one. “Sounds great.” God help me.
He wasn’t gone longer than a minute. When he returned, he wore a bright yellow T-shirt that clung to him like a second skin. She fought the urge to grab a Sharpie and draw a happy face across his chest. Eyes at his nipples and a mouth skimming the edge of his jeans would be perfect.
That thought left when Wes did. He moved down the hallway with purposeful steps, his boots beating a path to the front door. “You coming?” he called.
She rushed after him. When Sarge tried to follow, Wes got down on his knees and explained that dogs weren’t allowed in the diner. He said he’d take him to the bar later to visit Otis. Sarge lowered his head and wilted into the hardwood floor.
“You think he understood you?”
“Animals are a lot smarter than we think. He has a big vocabulary. I read somewhere that dogs can memorize hundreds of words.” Wes bent down and fluffed the fur on his head. “Sarge is bilingual.” He smiled at Lydia. “Another word you might be surprised I know.” Though he said it in jest, she felt bad he said it at all.
“How many times will I have to say I’m sorry?”
“I think a dozen or more should do it.”
Wes set his left hand on the small of her back and walked her to his truck. Like a gentleman, he opened the door and helped her inside.
“I can drive,” she said after he rounded the truck and climbed behind the wheel.
He laughed, the sound so warm it felt like warm syrup drizzling over her body.
“My poor ego couldn’t take it.” With the push of a button, the diesel’s engine growled, throaty and loud.
“Your ego should be solid. Look at you. Handsome with a killer body and passable personality.” She couldn’t help herself with Wes. He was fun to tease.
“Passable, huh?” He backed out of the driveway and headed the few blocks to Main Street. “My self-esteem hit the ground when I did. I saw that needle and down I went. Can’t say I’m not embarrassed by that.”
“Trypanophobia is nothing to be ashamed about. Up to ten percent of the population hates needles enough to pass out. Your faint made it easier to treat the injury. So thank you for that.”
He reached over and laid his bandaged hand on top of hers. “Thanks, Doc. Maybe your bedside manner isn’t so bad after all.”
“At least you didn’t liken me to the devil.”
His eyes grew wide as he pulled into an open parking space in front of the diner. “Not out loud anyway.”
She yanked her hand from under his and pinched the area of skin at the side of his ribs. She laughed when he squealed like a baby. “Come on, you wimp, I’ll buy you lunch.” She hopped out of his truck.
“Not on your life, sweetheart. I don’t want to hear about how you had to bandage me up and feed me. Lunch is on me.”
“Fine, but I’m warning you, I eat like a lumberjack.”
“I can handle it. I can handle anything you throw at me.”
Was that a challenge? She never could pass up a challenge. “Game on.”
They entered the almost empty diner, not unusual since it was past the normal lunch hour. Maisey rushed over with an iced tea for Wes and a questioning look for Lydia.
“If you were a regular, she’d have known what to bring already,” Wes said.
“I’ll have the same.”
When Maisey left, she asked, “Doesn’t regular get boring? Do you ever change your mind and want something different?”
“Sure, I like to try new things, but it’s nice when someone knows you well enough to know what you prefer. I always drink tea. Never much cared for soda. At the bar, I always drink dark beer. I can’t explain it, but these people are the family I choose. They get me.”
“Sage is all the family I’ve got.” She couldn’t believe they were the last of their line.
“Family isn’t only who you’re born to but includes who you choose.”
Lydia had spent little time building a family outside her sister and wondered what a family looked like to Wes. “Tell me about yours.”
Maisey placed a glass of iced tea in front of Lydia and took their orders. They both asked for blue-plate specials. Today was meatloaf and mashed potatoes. She had to admit there was comfort in knowing what she ordered would be what she wanted.
“You met Agatha. She’s my mom’s aunt.”
“She’s a Guild, right? Your house is called the Guild House. Is it a family property?”
He sat taller. The house made him proud. “Yes, it was the first house ever built in Aspen Cove. My family has deep roots here. My great grandfather Thomas Guild moved here over a century ago. He, Isaiah Bennett and Rushton Parker came here looking for gold. They never found it, but did okay in logging and then manufacturing.”
History fascinated Lydia. “So, Rushton is an ancestor of Doc’s, and Isaiah is related to Bea Bennett?”
“You’re almost right. Rushton was Doc’s grandfather. Isaiah was Bea’s grandfather-in-law, so her husband’s side of the family. He was a builder like me. He built the Guild House. The Parkers weren’t always in medicine. Doc is the first in his family to be a healer. His grandfather raised livestock in the valley between the peaks. You’ll have to get him to tell you how he won Phyllis’s heart by butchering his prize hog.”
“Does Doc have any children?” Lydia sipped her tea. “No one has mentioned any.” She looked up to see the frown on Wes’s face.
“Yes, he has a daughter, but she stopped talking to him the day Phyllis died.”
Maisey arrived with their specials. Lydia looked at the plate overflowing with home-cooked goodness and had to admit she wouldn’t mind meatloaf every Thursday.
After her first delicious bite, she urged Wes to continue. “Why would she disown him?”
“Doc is bigger than life in this town. Kind of a hero in these parts. He’s book brilliant and timeless, but when Phyllis had a stroke, he couldn’t save her, and Charlotte—or Charlie as everyone calls her—couldn’t handle it. She looked up to him like he hung the moon. Like somehow he was capable of anything. Phyllis’s death made him mortal.”
Lydia set her fork down. “That’s unfair. You can’t save them all no matter how hard you try. Poor Doc.”
Wes ate the way he kept house. There was no plan. He mixed it all together until total chaos covered his plate. “Agatha is working to mend the fences between father and daughter.”
“His daughter must be in her fifties. She should know better.” Lydia picked up her fork and stabbed a bite of meatloaf. She moved clockwise around her plate, taking bites of everything in order.
“She’s actually not much older than you and me. She’s in her thirties. They had her later in life with the help of modern medicine. Phyllis was in her late forties when Charlie was born.”
“Wow.” Lydia couldn’t imagine having a child in her forties. She was rounding the corner to thirty-three and considered herself almost on the shelf. With no father prospects, she was unlikely to have children and would have to be happy being aunt to Sage’s future children.
“Doc is family to everyone. It doesn’t take DNA to be part of a family.”
“You have sisters, but what about brothers?”
“I’m the only boy.”
“I bet your sisters spoiled you.”
“Terrorized me was more like it.”
When they finished, Maisey picked up their plates and asked about pie. Wes declined, but Lydia ordered cherry. The last time she had a piece was at her sister’s engagement party. She hadn’t stopped at one. She’d eaten a whole pie straight from the tin.
“You’re not kidding about eating like a lumberjack. How do you keep that body, eating so many calories?”
She ran her hands down her sides like a game show host showing off an appliance. “You like this body?”
“Looks better on you then it would have on the devil.”
“You want me to pinch you again?”
He pressed himself against the booth to gain distance. “No, I want to know how you can consume that much food and not waddle out of the diner.”
“Hollow leg,” she said in a serious tone. When he rolled his eyes, she added, “I have a killer metabolism. I’m sure it will turn around at some point, but my body is still programmed to work thirty-six-hour shifts and live off espresso.”
“What are you going to do now that you’re on a regular schedule?”
“Regular? Who works two days on and has five days off?”
Maisey brought the pie. “Me in the winter,” she chimed in. She tore the check off the pad and placed it in front of Wes. “I love the winter schedule.”
Lydia forked a big bite of pie into her mouth while Wes handed Maisey thirty dollars and told her to keep the change. The bill wasn’t over twenty bucks. It made Lydia happy to see Wes wasn’t a cheap bastard. Adam would have pulled out his calculator to figure fifteen percent to the penny.
“Is Dalton in the back?” Wes asked.
Maisey shook her head. “Are you kidding? I’ve never seen that boy clean up a kitchen so fast and disappear. Now that Samantha’s here I have the tidiest kitchen in town. Ben took over the second shift so if you want something else let me know.” She disappeared into the kitchen.
“Can’t blame Dalton.” Lydia scraped the last of the filling from the plate and licked her fork clean. “I don’t play for the V team, but if I did, Samantha would have my vote too.”
Wes choked on his tea. “You met her?”
“Oh yeah, we go way back to a few weeks ago when I visited my sister. The same week I got suckered into covering for Doc. I like her. For being richer than Oprah, she’s down to earth.”
Wes stood and offered Lydia his hand. She took it, and a tingle from his touch raced all the way to her core. They exited the diner and stood on the sidewalk out front, where several people were milling about.
“No one’s as rich as Oprah, but that girl has her priorities straight. She put Dalton first.”
Lydia pulled her hand from his. “Why would you say that? Does a woman have to give up everything to get her priorities straight?”
He gave her a look. The kind a person got when they knew someone was speaking their language but it sounded foreign. “No, all I’m saying is she found what made her happy and took the steps to secure it.”
“Not all of us are wealthy enough to build our dream center like she can.”
Wes gave her the same look her father had when he was disappointed. “If you think the center makes her happy, you’re not as smart as I first thought.”
Her inner child lashed out. “Well, you’re not as cute as I first thought either.” Lydia wanted to crawl into a hole and die. She was far beyond playground games, yet Wes made her feel so small when he pointed out the obvious. She knew without a doubt Samantha would h
ave given up everything to be with Dalton because he was the key component to her perfect world.
“You think I’m cute?” He opened the passenger side door for her, but she walked past him toward her sister’s place.
“I don’t know what I think anymore. All I know is I can’t think around you. I’m going to my sister’s.”
The echo of his laughter chased her down Main Street.
Chapter Eight
Wes laughed all the way home. Something told him his life as he knew it would change as long as Lydia was in town.
Sarge greeted him at the door.
“Oh, so now you want to be my dog again?” Did he see remorse in the dog’s eyes or was that hunger? The shepherd put his nose to work and found his treat tucked inside Wes’s back pocket. “You’re nothing but a treat whore. What am I going to do with you?” The bigger question was what would he do about Lydia. Before he could think too much about the pretty blonde with a killer ass, the doorbell rang.
Obviously, she’d changed her mind and had walked home. He swung the door open and said, “So I am as cute as you thought.” The last word caught in his throat. Standing on his doorstep were four men big enough to be linebackers.
The man in front spoke first. “Not really my type, but I suppose you’d catch someone’s eye.” He offered Wes his hand. “I’m Noah Lockhart.” He turned around. “These are my brothers, Ethan, Bayden, and Quinn. We had a meeting.”
He really needed to get his schedule straight. “Shit. Sorry. I thought you were someone else. Someone of the female persuasion.”
All four men glanced at their zippers and said, “Nope,” like they were a single entity. It was funny to see siblings in action. His sisters were the same. Get them in a room together and they could finish each other’s sentences. When they were in high school, they often came downstairs for breakfast wearing the same outfit. Born nine months apart, Mom called them Irish twins even though they weren’t Irish.
One Hundred Promises Page 5
