Back in the Bachelor's Arms

“Can we talk?” he asked as she took her first sip.

A slight frown beetled his brow but this time she didn’t think for even a moment that he was referring to talking about what had happened fourteen years ago. Instead she was reasonably certain the house and what was going on with it was more what he had in mind.

Chloe stepped out of the way of the door as an invitation. “Looks like we’d better,” she said, pointedly glancing at the disarray of the living room that the front door opened into.

Reid accepted the invitation, closing the door behind himself. When he had, he nodded in the same direction. “Luke and I have been working on the place.”

“So I understand. I just got off the phone with Betty. She tells me you plan to work here all week.”

“Yeah, that was the plan.”

“And since you saw me get dropped off here last night you thought maybe you should be a little nicer to me so I’d agree to let you go through with it.”

“Actually, no,” he said very matter-of-factly. “When I saw Molly drop you off here last night I went in and kicked the couch and cussed for a while. It wasn’t until after that that I decided—and not because of the remodel plan, but for other reasons—that I needed to come over this morning and start again. So, let me do that by backing up and asking if you’re okay. Physically.”

“I’m fine.”

“Seriously? Because I can’t say that was the best exam I’ve ever done and by now the doc from Billings who’s filling in for me this week should be at the hospital. He could do a recheck. I wouldn’t have to have anything to do with it.”

“Seriously, I’m fine. I was stiff when I got out of bed, but even that’s better.”

“No bruises that appeared overnight? No abdominal pain? No nausea? No headache or neckache? No difficulty breathing when you went to bed or going up or down the stairs? No—”

“No nothing. I’m fine and I don’t need the Billings doctor to confirm that. I was probably not even going ten miles an hour when I hit that pole. If the cop hadn’t insisted, I wouldn’t have gone in to a hospital at all.”

Reid nodded slowly, as if he wanted to believe her reassurance but was still skeptical.

Then he said, “If you’re absolutely sure you’re all right, then it’s a relief. I’m ordinarily not that lousy a doctor.”

“You were pretty lousy,” Chloe couldn’t resist confirming just because it was obviously bothering him and she thought she’d earned at least that much retribution for his bad attitude the previous evening.

“And,” he continued, “I should have asked where you were staying, I should have offered you a ride to wherever you needed to go. I was a jerk.”

“Yes, you were.”

“But this isn’t easy for me. You have to know that.”

“It isn’t easy for me, either,” she countered quietly, somberly.

That seemed to bring about a stalemate and silence reigned for longer than Chloe was comfortable with.

When she got too uncomfortable, she ended it.

“So, you’re really needing to work here this week,” she said to get back on the track they were both better able to deal with.

“I’m afraid I do. Northbridge has some support medical staff, but I’m the only doctor in town. I don’t get a lot of vacations and when I do take one, it’s complicated and really tough to back out on after everything has been set into motion. And our renters really need to get in as soon as it’s humanly possible, and we’ve promised that the minute we close the place it will be ready for them. I know it’s inconvenient for you, but Betty didn’t say anything about you coming—”

“Betty didn’t know.”

“Well, we’re in a bind.”

Guess you shouldn’t have been so contrary to me…

It was on the tip of Chloe’s tongue but she didn’t say it. After all, his scorn of the night before wasn’t altogether uncalled for. And if accommodating the work he needed to get done on the house would put that scorn and contempt in check so she didn’t have to deal with it while she was in Northbridge, she knew it was for the best.

“It looks like you’d be mainly working downstairs,” she said with a question in her tone.

“I would be.”

“I suppose I should have let Betty know I’d decided to do it, but I came to go through the stuff in the attic. I need to know what should be moved and what can just be thrown out. But with you down here and me up there, there would be a whole floor between us so maybe we wouldn’t get in each other’s way.”

“We probably wouldn’t.”

“I guess it might be okay,” she finally concluded, sounding hesitant, but less hesitant than she felt.

“I appreciate that,” he said. Although getting what he wanted seemed to be double-edged.

Then he added, “If you are feeling all right, I’ll leave and give you a little breathing room to get your day started. There are some supplies I need to pick up at the hardware store and I won’t be losing much time if I come back in a couple of hours.”

“That would be good,” Chloe said.

“Okay then.”

Reid hadn’t moved more than a few steps from the door and he retraced those steps to open it again.

But before he went outside, he hesitated and glanced back at her from over one big, broad shoulder. “You’re sure you don’t have any signs of physical problems from the accident?”

“Positive.”

He nodded but his gaze remained on her anyway for another moment before he actually did go out and close the door behind him.

Leaving Chloe with the image of his face branded on her brain as if it were the first time she’d ever seen him.

The image of a bone structure that fourteen years had honed to look as if it had been carved out of Italian marble, complete with high cheekbones that dropped to hollow cheeks, which gave him a rugged, outdoorsy appearance. A rugged, outdoorsy appearance enhanced by a jaw that was sharply defined and his mink-colored hair that was cut very short and left bristly all over.

The image of a straight, square forehead, and an aquiline nose that was only slightly long and added to the manly appeal of a face that was undeniably one of the most handsome she’d ever seen. The image of lips that were thin enough to be masculine and still full enough to be sensual. Of great eyes that were vibrant green tinged with only a hint of blue around the edges.

Deep, penetrating, intelligent eyes that had once been warm, caring and sensitive rather than cold, remote, guarded and wary as they had been last night and again this morning even in the midst of making peace.

No, seeing Reid, being in the same house with him, putting up a good front, wasn’t going to be easy.

But even more difficult for her, Chloe thought, was resisting the urge to do something—anything—to make those eyes look at her the way they had so long ago, rather than the way they looked at her now.

Chapter Three

Chloe wasn’t sure exactly what time Reid returned that afternoon. When he wasn’t there by one-thirty she left a note propped against the outside of the front door telling him to just come in without ringing the bell because she might be on the phone. Then she went upstairs to her bedroom and called the rental car company where she’d encountered only problems.

But sometime during the two hours she was on the phone and mostly waiting, she heard water run downstairs and realized that Reid actually had come back.