marry her, but she could still remember how badly he’d hurt her older sister.
The sound of heavy footsteps grew closer, the rhythm steady and certain—until it went dead silent at the doorway.
“Nick,” Bea said, by way of greeting.
“Mrs. Gardner,” came the deep, rumbling reply.
“Well, do come in.” Extending her hand, the gesture faintly regal, she motioned toward the foot of her bed.
“You remember Amy, don’t you?”
Amy wasn’t in the habit of being rude. Refusing to develop the tendency now, she turned with the thought of offering a polite hello—and felt her heart catch as her breath stalled in her lungs.
He stood six feet behind her, a mountain of leanly muscled masculinity in chambray, worn denim and work boots. Maturity had carved character into a face that had already been impossibly handsome, deepening the creases bracketing his chiseled mouth, fanning the tiny lines from the corners of his eyes.
She didn’t remember him being so big. Or his eyes so blue. His dark hair was meticulously cut, his face and forearms tanned from working long hours in the summer sun. He was hard and honed, the sort of man who dominated whatever space he occupied, and Amy felt an overwhelming urge to back up as his guarded glance slowly moved over her face and slipped down her slender frame.
“Yes. I do,” he replied in that polite way people have when a memory is there, but vague. Clearly cautious, he turned his attention to the woman holding court from the bed. “Since you have company, maybe we should discuss our business later.”
“Amy isn’t company,” Bea countered, sounding every bit as businesslike as he did. “She’s family. And your business is with her. My granddaughter has kindly come from Eau Claire to rescue me from this…place…my daughter has stuck me in and is handling what I obviously can’t. She’ll take you out to the house so you can do whatever it is you need to do to figure your estimates.
“As I told you on the phone,” she continued, ignoring both Amy’s look of surprise and Nick’s sudden and definite hesitation, “I need a new bedroom built downstairs. I won’t be able to climb the stairs to my old one,” she explained, sounding more annoyed with the inability than inconvenienced by it. “And I need a wheelchair ramp so Amy can get me in and out of the house. I can’t leave here until the ramp is in, and I would really like to return to my home.”
A wistful smile touched her once-full lips. “I’ve already missed seeing my lilacs bloom, and I know my roses need tending. Would your uncle’s company be able to take on the work now, assuming we agree on a price, or would there be a wait?”
“I can’t answer that until I know exactly what you have in mind for the addition.”
Bea inclined her head at his hedge. “Well, then, there’s nothing for me to do other than leave you in Amy’s capable hands. She can explain what I need, and we’ll go from there.
“You’ll call me this afternoon?” she asked her granddaughter.
“Of course.” She could count on it.
“Good. Then, if you’ll excuse me, I want to do my nails before bridge this afternoon.” She picked up her polish again, her shrewd glance cutting to the man who’d taken a step back to let Amy pass. “Thank you for coming, Nick. I wasn’t sure you would.”
Amy could practically feel his big body stiffen, though all she saw for certain was the jump of a muscle in his jaw a moment before he spoke. To his credit, not that Amy was inclined to give him much, his deep voice betrayed no reaction at all to her grandma’s doubt.
“My uncle owns the company, Mrs. Gardner. It’s not up to me to turn down business. It’s good to see you looking so well,” he concluded, deftly refusing her a chance to unearth what he’d rather leave buried. “I’ll get back to you with an estimate as soon as I can.”
Taking another step back, he caught Amy’s eye and arched one dark eyebrow. “Shall we?”
He looked remarkably unhurried as he stood waiting for her to precede him out the door. Or so it seemed until she noticed the little knot of muscle still twitching near his ear. Uneasy herself, rather wishing she hadn’t given her grandmother carte blanche with her services, she picked up her bag and slipped the straps over her shoulder.
This was one little twist she hadn’t imagined in the scenarios that had plagued her every time she’d thought about coming home the past couple of weeks. She’d known she would run into resistance from her mom about moving Grandma Bea back into her home. And she’d known Paige would side with their mom for reasons that had nothing to do with their mother’s objections, but which would still leave Amy to deal with the task by herself. She’d just never dreamed she’d have to deal with the man who had broken her sister’s heart.
Amy knew what it was to lose a friendship because love just wasn’t there. But she couldn’t imagine a worse breach of trust than for a woman to put all her faith and hope in a man, then have him leave her for another woman.
Amy knew for a fact that was what Nick had done. She’d even heard him admit there was someone else. The night he’d broken up with Paige, they’d been arguing beneath her bedroom window.
Telling her grandmother she’d talk with her later, she moved past him and into a bright hallway that smelled strongly of disinfectant and the lilies in the open day room. From a room behind them a frail voice kept up a constant litany of indistinguishable phrases. Ahead of them, a nurse steadied an elderly gentleman out for a stroll with his chrome-plated walker. The facility was the best available in Cedar Lake. Her mom had seen to that. Still, Amy couldn’t blame her grandmother for wanting to get out of there.
“What’s wrong with her?” Nick asked, his deep voice low as he fell into step beside her.
“I’ve been asking myself the same thing.” She simply could not believe her grandmother had called him.
“I mean physically,” he muttered.
Feeling a tug of chagrin, Amy protectively crossed her arms as they headed for the double doors of the exit. “She broke her hip a few months ago. That’s why she won’t be able to use stairs. I know she wants an addition built onto the house for a bedroom,” she continued, deliberately keeping her focus on her task, and the man with the walker. “But it might be faster to close in the back porch.”
“It sounds like you’re in a hurry to get out of Cedar Lake.”
“I’m in a hurry to get my grandmother settled back in her home,” she countered. “She needs to be in her own bed. She isn’t resting well here and I’m worried about her.”
And you’re right, she thought, though she wasn’t about to admit it to him. She did want to leave. Whenever she was in Cedar Lake, there was always part of her that wanted badly to get back to Eau Claire. There were things she truly loved about the charming east Wisconsin town where she’d grown up. Mostly she loved the quaint feel of it and the friendliness of people whose families remained, year after year. It was small enough that a person couldn’t walk down Main Street without running into someone she knew. But it was big enough that not everyone knew everyone else’s business.
The only reason she’d left was that she wanted to be out from under the collective thumb of her family.
