hadn’t been a single tear.
“Sam?” He knelt down, then peeled her fingers back. “I know it looks bad, but it can be fixed up just fine.”
Her crying deepened, her words gulping out between the sobs. “How am I going to pay to fix this?”
“Is that all?” Exasperated, Bret searched for a handkerchief. “The insurance company will cover it. All but the deductible.”
She shook her head. “The house is supposed to be vacant. The insurance won’t pay.”
His frown deepened. “Just explain the situation. Your parents can—”
“No!” For the first time, her voice gained strength. “They can’t know!”
He sat back on his heels. “What?”
“They don’t know I’m here.” Spent, the spirit in her voice drained away.
“What’s going on?”
Samantha ran her fingers over the chair’s handles, finally lifting a fragile hand to push her long, dark hair back. “I’m supposed to be in a rehabilitation facility in New York.”
His eyes dropped to her legs.
“I was working on a project in upstate New York. We had a freak snowstorm in the middle of spring. I was on top of a roof. Didn’t see the ice until it was too late. Landed a story below.” Her words stumbled to a halt, but he didn’t try to fill the long silence. “I was in a coma at first and in the hospital for months—spinal injury. My parents rushed back from Africa. When it was obvious I wasn’t getting better, they started talking about bringing me back here—putting all their plans on hold. Or, I should say, canceling them. I convinced them to pack up my apartment, sublet it, then get me to a New York rehab.”
He didn’t understand. “Why can’t they know you decided to come home instead?”
“I came back because I couldn’t afford to stay in the rehab place.”
“But insurance—”
She sniffled. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you took up selling insurance. Didn’t have any.”
His eyes widened.
Samantha was immediately defensive. “I was self-employed. I’m relatively young. I was healthy. Took all my savings to pay for the hospital.”
“What did the doctors say about your leaving?”
Her lips clamped into a firm line.
“So what was your prognosis?”
“That with therapy I could improve.”
Bret frowned again. “Then, why—”
“What doctor’s going to tell two hopeful parents that I’m stuck in this chair for life?” The defiance faded and silent tears slipped from her eyes.
Failing to find a handkerchief, Bret leaned closer, using his thumbs to ease the teardrops from her cheeks. “Your parents would have understood.”
“Exactly.” Her deep blue eyes searched his. “You know everything they’ve been through—losing Andy.” She bent her head at the mention of her deceased brother. He’d been killed in a small airplane crash five years earlier. “They finally managed to find enough sponsorship to start the school, to help kids the way he wanted to. And they’re supposed to give all that up to come back and nurse me?”
“It’s what parents do, Sam. Families.”
“Just get hurt over and over again?” She searched his eyes. “Aren’t they supposed to have dreams, too?”
Bret vividly remembered how she’d destroyed his dreams. “Family never was your first priority.”
The past reared up between them. When Samantha had been ready to pursue her far-flung career, Bret couldn’t leave Rosewood. His father was waiting for a heart transplant. While his mother took care of him, Bret stepped into his father’s shoes at the family nursery. His younger sister was still in high school at the time.
Bret had begged Sam to stay in Rosewood. She suggested that they hire someone to run his father’s business. She didn’t understand that it was more than just keeping the nursery going. There hadn’t been a certainty that his father would get the transplant in time. And Bret couldn’t abandon his family. At an impasse, their engagement ended.
Pain flashed in Samantha’s large eyes.
Although they hadn’t had any contact in eight years, he’d known about Andy’s death. Bret wondered now, as he had then, if the loss had brought home the importance of family.
Her wounded gaze lifted to the devastation in the kitchen. “Now I’ve ruined their house.”
“Not ruined,” he rebuked. “Damaged. But it can be fixed.”
Helplessly, she stared at him.
His gut told him to run. To get as far away as possible from the one woman he’d never been able to forget. He’d learned to live without her, but he’d never felt the same way about anyone else. Yet, as they always had, the deep blue of her eyes chased away his good sense. “I can recruit some help to work on the kitchen.”
“But you have—”
Bret resisted the pull of old, unresolved feelings. He doubted he’d survive another desertion. And once she was well, he knew she’d be gone again. “A friend who needs help.”
Samantha’s eyes, devoid of hope, flickered just a bit.
Friend… He had to keep it that way. Or he might not get over the pain this time.
Chapter Two
Birdsong floated through the open bedroom window, the curtain stirring in the morning breeze. Still unaccustomed to the small-town sounds of her youth, Samantha yawned. Arms stretched out elbow to elbow, hands rubbing still sleepy eyes, she halted at a new, unexpected sound.
Hammering. Or shooting?
Something was peppering the house. From the sound of it, nails or bullets must be hitting nearly the entire place.
Reaching toward the end of the bed, she grabbed a sweatshirt. She pulled it over her flannel pajama top and levered herself out of bed. Wheeling to the front door, she pulled it open. Still not oriented, she craned her head, looking for the source of the noise.
“Morning.” Bret spoke from her right, standing off on the grass.
“What are you doing?” She tried to see, but couldn’t push herself over the threshold.
“Porch ramp.”
She gestured behind into the house. “You offered to help with the kitchen. Why—?”
He looked pointedly at her stuck chair. “And if there’s another
