be a consultant. That’s what he expected, but he was going to hold his ground. No involvement, no way!
“Rather than sending major trauma cases to the hospital all the way over in Jasper, or someplace even farther away, we’re going to expand enough to handle what we need and help with overflow from other areas. So we’ve hired a nurse-coordinator to oversee the first phase of growth. She has an amazing trauma background, a doctorate in nursing …”
“A doctorate?” he asked, feeling his gut churn.
“A doctorate. And for where we are right now, she’s the perfect person to put in charge of coordinating the plans. Um, Jess … we hired …”
“Let me guess. You hired Julie Clark?” He hadn’t seen her in seventeen years, now here she was, front and center, twice in two days. How could that be happening?
Rafe frowned. “Either that was an amazing wild guess, or you’ve been in touch with Julie.”
“In touch. Not by choice.”
“Anything you want to talk about?” Rafe asked.
Jess shook his head. Didn’t reply, so Rafe continued, “Well, she was the right one. Has the credentials we need, as well as the experience …” He paused, studied Jess’s frown, sucked in a deep breath. “Look, Jess, since you’re not here most of the time, and when you are you never leave the cabin, I didn’t think it would matter.”
“Why would it matter?” Jess snapped, then stormed inside his cabin and slammed the screen door behind him. “Jess?” Rafe called after him.
“Nothing matters,” Jess yelled back. “Not one damned thing.” Except for those couple of weeks of Julie’s pregnancy scare hell. Those had mattered a lot.
CHAPTER TWO
“IT’S strange being back after all this time,” Julie said, dropping down into the chair across from Edie Corbett’s desk. “I have good memories of Lilly Lake, and I appreciate all the help you’ve been, helping me get settled here again.”
“I was new in town just about a year ago, so I know what it’s like trying to get yourself established, even if you did live here before.”
“It wasn’t for long … just a few years, but let’s just call them my formative years. And I really do want to thank you for letting me take a tour of Gracie House the other day. I didn’t mean to just stop on your doorstep and beg to be let in, but …” Julie smiled fondly. “But I couldn’t help myself. I needed a few minutes to come home.”
“And you’re welcome to come home any time you like. Our doors are always open.”
“I’ll bet I’m not the first.”
Edie laughed. “As a matter of fact, no, you’re not. Several of Grace’s children have stopped in, and Gracie House seems to be a focal point in their lives. For me, it’s interesting to meet the people who’ve passed through her life … and her doors.” She glanced fondly at a picture of Molly, her new daughter, and Grace’s former ward. “Interesting and life-changing.”
“Well, I spent the most important years of my life there. I was kind of a wild child, all my various adoptive parents threw me out, I had nowhere to go other than the juvenile home, and Grace stepped in and offered to take me. She made the difference, and it wasn’t always easy for her, dealing with me. But she had so much …”
“Patience?” Edie asked.
“That. But I think it was faith. She never saw the bad side or the difficulty in people. Whatever the situation, she always managed to turn it into something positive. Like the time I stole a couple hundred dollars from her and took a bus ride to New York City. I don’t think I really intended on running away so much as exploring the world, but the minute I stepped off that bus, aged sixteen, it was like all my small-town ways just wanted to pull me back. I was scared to death. Didn’t have enough money left for a decent meal. Nowhere to go. No one to help me. I mean, I was overwhelmed, and not as smart as I thought I was. So I called Grace, and she said she’d come get me. And she wasn’t angry, Edie. In fact, she told me it would take a few hours for her to get there, so I might as well wander around, see the sights while I could. She even suggested a couple places I should go. Julie, take advantage of your adventure … that’s what she told me. And when she finally picked me up, she asked me if I’d had a nice day. A nice day? I was expecting the wrath of God to fall down on me, and instead she took me to a very swanky restaurant, we spent the night in a glamorous hotel and the next morning she actually took me shopping. Then, when we got home, she asked me if I’d learned my lesson. To be honest, it took me a while to figure out what it was because to a crazy sixteen-year-old, it seemed like I’d been rewarded for my so-called crime.”
“So, what was the lesson?”
“To trust and rely on the people who love you when you have a problem. That they won’t let you down if you give them the chance to help. She told me if I’d have let her know how I was feeling, told her how much I wanted to go to the city, she could have taken me. But I didn’t give her that chance because I figured she would say no. I didn’t trust her enough to be honest with her.” Julie laughed. “A mistake I never made again. Oh, and she did require a little extra work from me in the stables to pay her back for the money I took … work in the form of a shovel and pitchfork. Which, actually, is why I’m here. I was wondering if the foundation could use an extra volunteer. I loved working with the horses when I was a teenager. I think that’s probably what grounded me more than anything else … being the person trusted with the care of another life. It certainly made me find things in myself I didn’t know were there. So now that I’m back—”
“Always!” Edie interrupted. “It seems like the more horses we take in, the further our reputation spreads. Rafe’s in the process of coordinating the building of another stable, one for the more critical horses. Sort of like an intensive care, I think. And we’re renovating both the old stables, enlarging them and modernizing the facilities. So we can use all the help we can get, and then some.”
“Well, I can still shovel …”
“There’s plenty of that to be done. And lots of other things, if you decide that shoveling isn’t quite the exciting time you remember.”
“Never exciting, definitely not the thing I wanted to be doing, but it was quite a character builder. Of course, Grace knew that when she put me on the task. And I’m not too proud to do that again, or anything else you need. I have a lot to pay back, and with the way Grace loved her horses …” A stray tear slid down Julie’s cheek. “Working with Grace’s horses again is one of the biggest reasons I applied for the job here in Lilly Lake. I’d just hoped to be doing it with Grace.”
“I miss her, too. And I didn’t know her for very long. But she made such an impact on my life in such a short time … brought me together with my husband, gave me my daughter. I owe her everything.”
“Me, too,” Julie whispered reverently. “Everything.”
On the verge of tears herself, Edie cleared her throat. “Well, then, why don’t you stop over this afternoon, after you get off work, and have a look at the horses we have right now? I’ll let Johnny Redmond know you’re coming, and I’m sure he’ll have some details and schedules for you to go over by then. Oh, and I’d love to have you stay for dinner, if you don’t
