himself, although at this point, it felt as if that had been a hundred years ago instead of just four. At the time, it hadn’t even been a sense of altruism that had brought him here. Guilt had been the emotion that was responsible for bringing him to Forever.
Guilt and a sense of obligation.
He felt he owed it to Warren. Warren had been his younger brother, and a more quietly dedicated human being hadn’t ever walked the face of the earth. He’d been the one to fatefully convince Warren to come out on one last night on the town before Warren left for the godforsaken dot on the map where he intended to set up a practice. Forever hadn’t had a doctor for thirty years and was in desperate need of one within its borders.
A car accident that night had claimed Warren’s life while leaving him with nothing more than an outward scratch. Internally, though, was another matter. For weeks afterward, he had been all but hemorrhaging guilt. But even so, he’d initially planned to stay in Forever only until a suitable replacement for his late brother could be located.
He hadn’t counted on falling in love—with the town and with Tina Blayne, a single mother and the sheriff’s sister-in-law.
Life truly happened while you were making other plans, Dan thought now. And while he didn’t expect this young woman who had responded to his letter to feel the same way about the town, he had to admit that he was secretly hoping that she would in time.
“New York, eh? Don’t worry,” Brett assured Dan, even though his eyes never left the woman. “We won’t hold that against her.”
Alisha raised her chin, as if she had just been challenged. Of late, she knew she had gotten extremely touchy, but knowing didn’t seem to help her rein in that feeling.
“Why should you?” she asked.
Brett didn’t take offense at her tone. Rather, he just rolled with it, asking, “Short on senses of humor back in New York, are they?”
Alisha never missed a beat. “Not when something’s funny,” she said.
“Feisty,” Brett pronounced, this time directing the comment toward the senior doctor. The grin on the bartender’s face seemed to grow only sexier as he observed with approval. “She might just survive out here, then.”
Dan made a quick judgment call, seeing the need to usher the young woman out before barbs began being exchanged. “Let me bring you over to Miss Joan’s,” Dan suggested.
Alisha glanced over at him, trying to hide her uneasiness. “That’s not a brothel, is it?”
Brett was the first to succumb, laughing at the idea of the vivacious septuagenarian and diner owner who was part of all their lives for longer than anyone could remember running a house of ill repute. Liam quickly followed, and Dan held out for almost a minute, biting his tongue and trying to think of other things.
But the very image of the redheaded Miss Joan as a madam proved to be too much for him, as well, and he laughed until his sides ached, all the while trying to apologize to a less-than-entertained Alisha.
“I take it the answer’s no,” Alisha surmised, doing her best to maintain her dignity amid this joke she felt was at her expense.
It was Brett who answered her because Dan appeared to still be struggling for control. “Miss Joan runs the local diner. She dispenses hot food and sage advice, depending on what you need most. She’s been here for as long as anyone can remember. Longer, probably. The diner’s also the place where everyone goes to socialize when they’re not—”
“Here, drinking,” Alisha said, reaching the only conclusion that she could, given the facts as she perceived them.
Brett corrected her. “When they’re not here socializing.” His manner remained easygoing, but he wasn’t about to allow misinformation to make the rounds. Murphy’s wasn’t only his livelihood, a way that had allowed him to raise his brothers while keeping an eye on them; it was also his heritage. The saloon had been passed on to him after his uncle had died. Before that, his late father had run the establishment. To Brett, Murphy’s was almost as much of a living entity as his brothers were.
“Don’t they come here to get drunk?” Alisha pressed, recalling some of the parties that had gone on after hours while she was attending medical school. Nobody drank for the taste or to just pass away an hour; they drank to get drunk and even more uninhibited than they already were.
Out of the corner of his eye, Brett saw that his brother was taking offense at the image the young doctor was painting. He wanted to set this woman straight before something regrettable might be said. Liam was soft-spoken and he meant well, but a lasting relationship between his brain and his tongue hadn’t quite been reached yet.
“Not nearly as much as you would think,” Brett told her, keeping his smile firmly in place. “I’m not sure exactly how it is in New York, but out here, we do look out for each other—and that includes knowing when to cut a customer off.”
“Except for Nathan McLane,” Liam interjected. The youngest Murphy brother was nothing if not painfully honest—to a fault, Brett sometimes thought.
Alisha looked from Liam to Dan. “Who’s Nathan McLane?”
“A man who’s married to the world’s most overbearing wife,” Brett answered. “Nathan has a very strong reason to come here and drown his sorrows.”
“So you let him get drunk?” she asked, trying to get the story straight.
Brett caught the slight note of disapproval in her voice. “It’s either that, or raise the bail for his release because the poor guy’s going to strangle that woman someday just to get her to stop nagging him.”
Alisha frowned. The dark-haired man was making it sound as if he was doing a good thing. “How noble of you.”
Brett didn’t rise to the bait. He was not about to argue with the woman. He wasn’t in the business of changing people’s minds, only in telling it the way he saw it. “Dunno about noble, but it does keep everyone alive,” he informed her.
Dan lightly took hold of Alisha’s arm, wanting to usher her out while the young doctor who could very well be the answer to his prayers was still willing to remain in Forever and lend him a hand.
Glancing over her head, he indicated to Brett that he had a feeling that if his new recruit remained here, talking to him for a few more minutes, she might be on the first flight out of the nearby airport—headed back to New York.
“Next stop, Miss Joan’s Diner,” Dan announced.
“Hey, Lady Doc,” Brett called after her. Pausing by the door, she turned to spare him a glance. “Nice meeting you.”
“Yes,” she replied coolly. “You, too.” The door closed behind them.
“Wow, if that was any colder, we’d have to bring out the pickaxes to break up the ice around you,” Liam commented.
Brett saw no reason to dispute that assessment. However, true to his ever increasingly optimistic, positive nature, he pointed out, “That means that we can only go up from here.”
Liam shook his head. It was clear that wasn’t what he would have come away with. “You know, Brett, when I was
