haven’t—”
“I know, I know. I haven’t fulfilled my obligation. You made that clear when I left. You think I don’t know how much I owe? But it isn’t going to happen in the near future, if at all, and I’m sorry, but I can’t do anything about—”
“I didn’t come here to argue with you.”
“No?” Her gaze met his briefly, then skimmed away.
“And I didn’t come here to coerce you back to Texas against your will. I have business in the area.”
Her golden-brown gaze met his with a hint of disbelief. “You think a town the size of Jolly Mill has a lot of homeless?”
“I didn’t say a mission. I said business.”
“Oh really? You make sales calls for your own company now? Times must be hard. No one needs a lot of go-green construction pieces in this part of the country.” She held her arms out. “Look around you, Gerard. No one’s building anything here. We even have a few businesses that have closed.”
He ignored the sarcasm in her voice. “Hans and I still need to expand.”
“But here?”
“We need a location for a second manufacturing plant, and we still plan to establish the rehab center.”
She blinked at him. He’d discussed his plans with her in detail, and he knew she shared his enthusiasm for those plans. He’d never told her he was considering her hometown, but hearing her talk about the community with such affection had drawn him to this place as much as her tender heart had drawn him to her.
“You don’t plan to do that in Texas?” she asked.
“We’re still looking, but Hans, Tess and I all feel attracted to this area for the rehab center.”
“Why?”
“You’ve often spoken of returning here, and you make this area of the country sound appealing. There’s also a depressed economy in many parts of southern Missouri, and more industry can only help. Besides, when people from the street come to rehab, we want to make sure they’ll be able to make a fresh start in a fresh place with no memories of failure to haunt them.”
“You can’t be doing this because of me, Gerard.”
“I didn’t say I was. I just thought it was time I came to take a look for myself. I’ve done some preliminary studies, and this region could be well suited to what we want in the expansion, including people in need of a job.”
“Your timing stinks. You know that, don’t you? I need a chance to heal, and your being here doesn’t help. Besides, we’re doing well in this area financially.”
He studied her features. “Your eyes are shadowed. Your skin’s pale. I knew you’d suffer in silence.”
She looked away.
He searched the surrounding woods for signs of another habitation, but the closest building he saw was several hundred feet away through the trees, and that appeared to be a barn.
“Probably no one’s heard you screaming during your nightmares.”
She shook her head.
“But you’re still having them.” It wasn’t a question. Those screams were part of her excuse—no, make that her reason—for leaving the mission. She’d explained that her neighbors were complaining, and that her lack of sleep could put patients at risk.
Gerard felt his gaze become a touchless caress and he knew she felt it too. He couldn’t help himself. After all she’d endured at the mission, until this last horrible experience, she’d been courageous and compassionate, helping all the patients she could simply because she cared. How could he not admire her?
She closed her eyes for a few seconds, and when she opened them again he saw sadness there as deep as a Texas oil well.
After losing a patient on the exam table at Christmastime from the results of a vicious poisoning by someone determined to destroy Tess, Megan had redoubled her efforts at target practice so she could better guard her patients. When with Tess, traveling or shopping, she’d carried a concealed weapon, as she had in the clinic. To lose Joni Park despite all her efforts to become a security guard as well as a physician was more than Megan could emotionally handle. Gerard continued to reproach himself since their final argument outside the mission.
His sister wasn’t too happy with him either. When Tess was forced to retreat to the mission in fear of her life last year, she and Megan had formed a tight bond. Megan was the sister Tess never had, and for the past several months, Tess had hinted to Gerard that he could make that sisterly relationship legal. After some long talks with Tess these past three weeks, Gerard understood Megan so much better than he had before.
What was it about women that made it so easy for them to connect with one another and be able to read each other’s minds? And why hadn’t he grasped the true depth of Megan’s heart sooner, without Tess’s help?
“Gerard, there are barely eight hundred people living here,” Megan said. “You bring Texas here and it won’t be Jolly Mill anymore.”
“This is strictly a fact-gathering trip. I arrived this morning and wanted to see you first.”
“You drove all night.”
He nodded.
“Looks like it.”
“Thanks.”
Something around her eyes seemed to relax. “You’re seriously considering this because of what I said about Jolly Mill?”
“Have you ever known me to lie?”
She held his gaze, and a glint of the gold seemed to lighten. “Not to me because you knew I’d make you suffer if I caught you at it.”
He felt his own tension settle, and he grinned at her.
“I have, however, known you to keep things from Tess,” she reminded him, “when you thought you were protecting her, and there have been times when you tended to take a more paternal attitude toward me.”
“You’re reminding me I’m bossy?”
“Well, yeah, there’s that.” Her voice was heavy with sarcasm, but the corners of her lips turned up.
The two-week fight that had hovered between them over the miles had ended, just like that. Now to keep it from returning. “I couldn’t let you deal with this alone,” he said. “It’s too big for one person to handle.”
“You seem to be handling it.”
“I didn’t take the brunt of it. You did. And I’m not handling it alone the way you are. Tess and Sean and the whole staff know what happened. Sean and I have had some long talks about it. Who can you talk to about it?”
She looked away.
“That’s what I thought,” he said. “Nobody. You
