“No, but you can’t help me.”
“I’m a good nurse.” She started with business, seeking common ground.
“Amanda said as much. But you can’t be her replacement.”
“Her temporary replacement.” Imogen corrected that first, still smiling, though now with effort. “If you know I’m a good nurse, and your usual nurse recommended me, why do you say I can’t help you?”
He pulled off the goggles and laid them on the log he’d just notched. “No offense, but Amanda has the respect of the people we care for, and no matter how good you are at your job they won’t trust you and won’t be as open as we need them to be to get the best care.”
“Seems a little last century to me. You’re afraid I can’t take care of people because they speak with a different accent than I do?” She smiled, trying to cajole him. “I can do the accent if that’s seriously your hang-up.”
“Don’t try to do the accent.” He leveled a stern look at her, as if he could stare the words into her with those dark eyes. “You’re an outsider. You’ll never be someone they’ll identify with. I can’t use you.”
To buy time to think, Imogen walked the short distance to inspect the cabin walls. “You’re local. Can’t they just talk to you as a trustworthy insider, and I’ll follow your lead?”
“I’ve been gone a while. They’re not sure what to think of me yet.”
She tried a different tactic. “That’s not the bus, is it?” That ancient wreck wouldn’t inspire anyone to come and get healthy in it.
He didn’t say anything, just gave her another wilting look, then went about maneuvering the first log of the line.
“Good.” This really wasn’t working out the way she’d pictured, and she dearly wished he’d put his shirt back on. She never had trouble making friends. Everyone had some kind of common ground, the trouble was finding it. “Do you need help with that?”
“No.” He grunted the word more than spoke it, but, then, he was obviously exerting himself, wrestling a log to the cabin walls. The muscles across his shoulders and down his back bunched, momentarily wiping her mind of anything clever to say. “I don’t need anyone’s help with the cabin.” He didn’t stop working to talk, though he may have been slowed down by it.
“Go visit Amanda, your trip doesn’t need to be wasted.”
“Later.” She walked up the embankment as he continued with his logs. Once she stopped the lusty staring, some cognitive function returned. “Do you think you could put your shirt back on? Wouldn’t want you to lose a nipple in a tragic log-rolling accident.” She failed to suppress her natural cheekiness. Impulse control: sometimes she had it, sometimes she didn’t.
He smiled up at her—his first smile since she’d arrived—and immediately lost his balance, nearly falling. It took skill to regain his footing and keep the log from getting away from him.
Okay, she was cute. He didn’t want to like this pink-haired woman. Couldn’t afford to like her. Liking her would make him more likely to grant her request, and he needed to make all practice-based decisions with a clear head. He’d had his fill of do-gooder city doctors as a kid when Josh had been sick, and he’d sooner close the practice than have it turn into a professional pit stop for condescending outsiders. No matter how cute.
“I’ve been doing fine without the running commentary so far.” He’d also been doing fine without shapely tanned legs drawing his eye away from his work. Doing better, really. He changed position so she stood between him and the old blue bus. He never liked looking that direction, and the change made it easier to pay attention to what he was doing rather than to her legs.
“Okay.” Up until now, she’d been mostly good-humored about his refusal, but her continued presence said she wasn’t the type to go down without a fight. Strange that she and Amanda were such good friends—they couldn’t have been more different.
“I can see you want to get back to work,” Imogen said to his back, “so I feel obligated to point out that you can get rid of me very simply. Say you’ll let me work the next few months, and I’ll leave you to play with your big-boy building logs in whatever state of dress you like.”
She didn’t talk like a nurse. They were usually a little more cautious and obliging than this one. She really didn’t like being told no. That was tough. “Find a job in Piketon if you’re sticking around.” He got the log close to the cabin then used rope to muscle it into position.
“They don’t need me in Piketon. Like it or not, you do.” she moved into his line of sight again and propped her hands on her hips, looking more confident and at home on his mountain than she had any right to. “You can’t run your practice by yourself, and Amanda’s made it clear how uncertain its future is. Funding in jeopardy and all that business. She wants her job back when she’s able, and that means there needs to be a job for her to go back to.”
The cuteness was starting to wear off.
Wyatt dropped the rope and looked at her, keeping the bus at his back. Winter would be here before he knew it, and the cabin needed to be roofed before then or he might be staying in the blasted bus. That couldn’t happen, and wouldn’t if she’d go away. “Kicking up a fuss won’t win me over. Glad you came to help Amanda out, but you aren’t working for me.”
He briefly considered paying her to leave, anything to make her stop looking at the bus. Damn, that thing needed to be gone.
The fingers on her hips dug in and she looked from his chest to his neck, to his eyes, then off to the side. She was tall. Tall enough that even with his height and the additional elevation where he stood, she still came up to his chin. Must scrape six foot, this one. For some reason it pleased him to find her struggling with where to look at him.
“You’re not even going to give me a chance?” Her body language screamed discomfort, but she wasn’t backing down. Something else he didn’t want to like about her.
Maybe if she stuck around, in a couple weeks—after he hired someone—he’d visit and make amends. No matter how bad a fit, anyone who’d drop everything to run to the side of a friend in need deserved respect at least. “There’s no chance of this working.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do, actually. I’ve seen this scenario play out many times when out-of-town medical professionals with good intentions come to help the backwoods mountain folk. I know you mean well…” Even when they’d spoken jargon they’d mistakenly assumed a child wouldn’t understand, he’d known they’d meant well. And he’d known how sick his brother had been. Good intentions never saved anyone.
“I do mean well.” She pushed her hands into her hair, dragging it back from her face as she finally looked back to his eyes. “Give me a chance. If I fail, fire me spectacularly and smooth over any feathers I inadvertently ruffle. I can give you references. I have more accreditations than you’d believe. I’ve worked in all kinds of different places. I can adapt.”
He shook his head once more and his answer finally took. With much muttering to herself, she stomped off down the hill. There wasn’t much he could make out, but the word “ass” came through loud and clear.
