he saw a petite, auburn-haired woman zip around a corner with a grocery basket slung over one arm. Sophie. Why did she have to be here now?
He groaned, pasted a strained smile on his face and made himself straighten up.
A muscle spasmed in his back. His balance faltered, sending his foot skidding on the slick, wet tiles of the entryway. In one dizzying moment, he saw the floor rush up to meet him.
And then stars exploded inside his skull.
A teenager shrieked. Footsteps thundered down the aisle by the front door. Sophie froze for a split second, then dropped her basket of groceries and spun around to the end cap of the aisle. Four—no, five girls were standing around someone sitting on the floor.
An all too-familiar oak cane with a carved handle lay on the floor nearby.
Lois, a pudgy, middle-aged clerk in jeans and a purple Aspen Creek Warriors sweatshirt, was kneeling at his side. “Step back, girls. Go on about your business.”
Nervous laughter rippled through the group. “I saw him fall,” one of them exclaimed. “He fell super hard. Is he, like, hurt real bad?”
“Do you need help?” asked another girl, her voice tinged with excitement. “I think he hit his head. I took CPR for babysitting last fall.”
“He’s breathing just fine, and says he’s perfectly okay.” Lois fluttered her hands at them, shooing them away. “Now scoot, and don’t embarrass the poor man any further. I’m just going to help him up in a minute, and he’ll be good to go.”
The girls hovered, obviously loath to miss any excitement, then reluctantly continued on their way down the aisle when Lois fixed them with a steely glare. Their brittle laughter and stage whispers floated behind them as they left.
Sure enough, Sophie could now see the man’s profile, and he was definitely Josh McLaren. His face was pale and strained, but from the high color at the back of his neck, rigid set of his jaw, and lines of tension bracketing his mouth and eyes, the fall had not only been painful, but he was also embarrassed at making a scene.
The dilemma—embarrass him further with her presence, or stand back and risk the chance that he might falter and fall again?
No contest.
“Howdy, stranger,” she said lightly, moving to his other side as Lois helped him to his feet.
He shot a glance at her and muttered something unintelligible under his breath.
“I told him we should call the EMTs because I do think he hit his head,” Lois said, the crook of her elbow still hooked through his as she handed him his cane. “But he said absolutely not—that he’d be on his way home before they showed up, anyway.”
“I don’t need any help. I need dog food. And then I need to go home,” he said, his voice ragged. He cleared his throat. “But thanks for the thought, and thanks for helping me out. You…probably need to put some mats down by that front door. It’s wet.”
“Here—you can sit on that bench by the entrance, and I’ll get what you need, okay?” Sophie offered. “Just give me your shopping list.”
“I’m not disabled,” he said through clenched teeth. The irony of his words apparently hit him, and his expression softened. “Well…maybe a little. But I can handle this myself.”
“It will take just a minute if you let me help, or it could end up with you slipping again. Your boots are wet and a little muddy from being outside. This could’ve happened to anyone.”
“Right. Which is my point exactly.” He nodded to her, then started slowly down the aisle, his shoulders stiff with the effort to keep each stride steady. “So, thanks for your concern, and please just take care of all your other clients. I am perfectly fine.”
Sophie showed up every morning at the cramped Pine County Home Health office on Main Street to pick up the day’s set of patient folders, any new physical therapy orders, and the necessary equipment and supplies for the clients on her schedule.
An orderly system. A good start to the day.
But her first four days on the job had all ended the same. Failure. And it wasn’t going to happen again.
She’d called the phone number listed on Dr. McLaren’s chart and found it disconnected, then she’d stopped at his cabin three days in a row after that first awkward meeting. He hadn’t answered the door the first two times, but since his dog was there, surely the man had to be somewhere on the property.
Yesterday, McLaren had been outside when she pulled in, and he’d flatly refused to begin therapy. Didn’t he have any idea of how much she could help, and how much better his quality of life could be? Why didn’t he care?
Only his mammoth dog liked to see her show up, and she hadn’t made any progress at all with its owner. That humiliating incident at the grocery store yesterday had probably only firmed McLaren’s resolve.
But after years of dealing with her critical father, difficult grandfather and a kind but apathetic husband, this was one man who wasn’t going to stand in her way, because far too much was at stake.
Sophie climbed out of her car and tossed a dog biscuit at Bear, who had started meeting her with a feverishly wagging tail every time she showed up at the McLaren place. “If I’d known you were this happy over dog biscuits, I wouldn’t have sacrificed my salmon,” she said drily, rubbing the wiry fur on the top of his head. “So, where’s this master of yours hiding this time?”
“I never hide. You just don’t know where to look. And frankly, that’s fine by me.”
She spun around and found her quarry shadowed in the doorway of a log building at the edge of the clearing. Roughly the size of a three-car garage, its weathered exterior blended into the forest as if it had stood there for a hundred years.
She folded her arms across her chest. “Answering a phone or a knock on the door would be common courtesy.”
“Of which I possess very little. So please, if you don’t mind—”
“I want to help you, Dr. McLaren.”
“And I just want to be left alone.” He stood straight and tall, a formidable and darkly handsome man who might have been at home in a boardroom or with a badge on his chest in the Old West, and his words rang with the finality of someone who didn’t intend to see her again. “I thought I made that clear at the grocery store yesterday. So good day, Ms…”
“After my phone calls and the business cards I left on your door, I’m sure you know my name by now.”
He tipped his head in slight acknowledgment as he awkwardly turned away, and she could see he was leaning even more heavily on his cane than usual. He winced, stilled for a moment, then started to close the door.
A flash of desperation shot through her. “Look, I’ve got four clients in their eighties and nineties, and they all have the courage to make their lives better.” She strode across the clearing. “What are you afraid of? That therapy will hurt? That you’ll fail?”
He paused, but didn’t turn back to face her. “That isn’t your
