THE SOUND OF Nelson locking the front door of the clinic was music to Delphi’s ears. It had been a very long day. And it wasn’t over yet. The two exam rooms had to be readied for tomorrow, which was another packed day.
“So, what’d you think?” Skye asked, slipping off her white lab coat. If anyone had told Delphi her friend would willingly, openly refer to herself as Dr. Skye she’d have laughed. But it suited Skye now. She was like a brighter, happier version of the friend Delphi had known throughout college. Vibrant. That was the word. Vibrant described Skye these days. With her mass of wild red curls and glowing happiness, she was positively radiant.
The three of them began prepping the first exam room.
“What do I think? I think I’m amazed at how much work you guys do.” Delphi was ready to drop.
“It won’t be this busy all the time,” Nelson said as he replenished the bandage drawer.
“I know. I’m the new girl in town and everyone’s sad to see you go. Well, happy for your opportunity, but they’ll miss you.” Delphi could easily understand why Nelson was so beloved in this community. Quiet, he possessed an extremely dry sense of humor. If you weren’t paying attention his wry observations would go right over your head.
And Skye had told her he was the shaman-in-training for his clan. It had taken all kinds of special dispensations for him to work out going away to medical school without giving up his shaman status. Delphi didn’t understand all of it but she was glad it had all worked out for him.
He was a nice guy, and his wife had stopped by with his lunch earlier today. She was beautiful in an equally quiet way. Seeing the two of them together had been like watching the flow of a river—quiet, strong but deep.
She’d seen the two of them and thought about Lars. It was easier to pinpoint the few times that she hadn’t thought about Lars. Let’s see...none. It was as if he’d been simmering on the back burner of her brain all day. You’d think with the office being so busy and all the things Delphi needed to assimilate to take over from Nelson, she wouldn’t have had the mind space to spare him a thought. Er, no, he’d parked his fine self on some prime brain real estate in her head. It was quite disconcerting.
Delphi couldn’t wait to stretch out in that claw-foot tub and let the water soak away her aches.
“I’m going to make some quick notes on the charts while you guys finish up the second room, if you don’t mind,” Skye said, putting her hand in the small of her back and stretching.
“No problem.”
“Sure.”
They moved into the second exam room. There were only the two. Delphi wasn’t quite sure if she would get used to the giant smiley faces painted on the walls. But then again, she didn’t have to. Three months would fly by before she knew it.
“How’d you like Mirror Lake?” Nelson said.
He laughed at her start of surprise. “Everyone knows most everything that goes on in Good Riddance,” he added.
“It’s one of the coolest places I’ve ever been.” She told him about the dragonflies swarming at the water’s edge. “I’d never seen anything like that before.”
He regarded her solemnly with his coal-black eyes. “It’s a message.”
“Huh? A message? What kind of message?”
“Dragonflies are a powerful totem. Animals appear to us with messages. Sometimes we must figure out what message the animal carries. However, the dragonfly carries the message of change. Change is coming to you.”
“Well, I am here.”
“It is not Good Riddance. It is far more fundamental to you, internal to you. And the change will bring peace, harmony, purity with it.” He nodded. “And the lake bottom trembled while you were there, also, did it not?”
Okay, everybody was truly up in everyone else’s business here. “Yes, it did.”
“Yet more change. Your messages are clear and strong.”
Delphi wasn’t sure she was exactly comfortable with being pegged with change messages. “Lars Reinhardt was there, as well.” Not that she needed to tell Nelson—she was sure that was common knowledge, as well. “Maybe the messages were for him.”
“You were there together?” She nodded. “The messages are for both of you.”
“Um, okay.”
He touched her arm and something powerful seemed to course through her, an energy. It wasn’t the sexuality that raged rampant between her and Lars. This was, she didn’t know, different. It certainly got her attention.
“It’s important that you understand. The changes, they are deep. The very crust of the earth spoke to you. But your changes are tied in with Lars. And his changes are tied in with you.”
Nelson was a nice guy, but he just didn’t get it. “Well, you know Lars is only here for a few more days and, well, it’s just a holiday romance.”
His smile held a curious note of amusement. “It has nothing to do with me, Delphi. The universe has spoken. You can heed its message or not.”
Okay. She’d roll with the not option.
“It won’t matter,” he said, guessing her thoughts. “Because the events have already been put in motion. Just think of it as a cosmic ‘heads-up.’”
Just think about it as a bunch of nonsense. She found it rather surprising that Nelson bought into all of that with his medical background.
“It is the way of my people,” he said. “You do not have to believe. You will find it is so, regardless.”
Okay, that was creepy. He’d responded to her thoughts. More than likely, her skepticism had shown. She tended to wear her emotions on her sleeve.
They were just finishing up the room when she heard the drone of the bush plane. Lars was back.
She couldn’t keep a smile from blossoming on her face. And why should she? She was in lust. Heck, she could even be silly and say she was temporarily in love. That was fun.
“You guys have a minute?” Skye called out from her office.
Delphi curbed her impatience. Lars would be there when she got off. It wasn’t as if he was going anywhere, at least not for a couple of days.
Skye was sitting behind her desk. Delphi settled in one of the chairs on the “patient” side. Nelson took the other.
Skye looked from Delphi to Nelson and back to Delphi. Finally she spoke. “Delphi, we’ve been friends a long time. I love you like a sister. I know I like you better than my sister. And Nelson, you have been both coworker and friend and I just think the world of both of you.” Tears gathered in Skye’s eyes and spilled down her cheeks. She sniffed.
Delphi and Nelson exchanged a puzzled, concerned glance. Skye had loosened up considerably, but she was still one of the most composed women Delphi knew. Regardless of how much she’d loosened up, Skye didn’t cry. Now, however, was an exception. The waterworks really cut loose.
Delphi waited, her heart lodged in her throat as Skye dashed at her tears. What could possibly reduce Skye to this?
“Oh, my, I’m crying.”
Delphi looked questioningly at Nelson. However, he no longer looked confused or concerned. A quiet smile curved his mouth. Okay...obviously he’d figured out something Delphi hadn’t.
Delphi couldn’t stand it a second longer. “Okay, you’re killing me here. Why are you crying? What’s wrong?”
Skye shook her head and opened her mouth, but a wail came out. Nelson nodded sagely and Delphi was wound so tight she thought she might reach over and shake him until he told her what the hell was going on.
Nelson passed a handful of tissues across the desk and Skye took them, mopping at her face. Mascara left raccoon rings around her blue eyes. Finally, Skye got her tears under control. Her smile was watery as she beamed at them across the desk. “I’m expectiinnngg.” The last word came out as another wail and she promptly burst into tears again.
“Are you happy or sad?” Delphi said. Skye had smiled, but with all the wailing and tears, it was rather confusing—mixed signals.
“Happy, of course.” She hiccuped from all the waterworks. “My hormones are all out of whack. And I’m so tired, I can hardly move at the end of the day.”
A baby. Oh, my. Skye and Dalton were going to have a baby.
“How far along are you?” Nelson said. At least one of them had the presence of mind to ask a sensible question.
“Right at twelve weeks. We wanted to wait. At least until we knew for sure.”
Delphi got up and rounded the desk, hugging her friend. Tears slid down her cheeks. Great! Now she was crying, too. Laughing through their tears, Delphi and Skye looked at Nelson. “You might as well cry, too,” Skye said with a sniffle.
Delphi sat back down.
Nelson smiled. “I’m going to leave that to you two. Thanks, though. So, you’re due...” He trailed off, mentally calculating.
“The babies are due in November.”
“Babies?” Delphi was sure she’d heard a plural, as in more than one.
“Babies. There are two heartbeats—both strong, thank goodness. Twins. My due date is Thanksiving.” She laughed. “If I make it that far with two of them. It’ll be quite something to be thankful for.”
Babies. Twins. Delphi tried to shut down the imagery that popped into her brain, but it was a losing battle. Her and Lars with their own set of twins. One blond like her, one darker like him.
And that was some truly insane thinking when she’d only known the man a few days. She must be more tired than she’d realized...and more temporarily besotted than she cared to admit.
* * *
“HI, MERRILEE,” LARS said as entered the back door of the airstrip office.
He didn’t stop to chat but headed immediately for the stairs.
Merrilee called out to him. “Good evening to you, too, Lars. She’s not in yet.”
“Oh.” He stopped and pivoted around. He walked back over to Merrilee’s desk. “How are you?”
Merrilee laughed, shaking her head. “You’ve got it bad, haven’t you?”
There was no point in denying it. “Yep.”
“That seems to be the way you Swenson men do it. It hits you like a truck and that’s it. Quick and hard and there’s no going back. Bull waited twenty-five years for me. Dirk’s been carrying a torch for Natalie since they were kids.” Yes, Dirk was fixated, all right. He had talked about her all damn day. Merrilee continued her rundown of the Swenson men in love. “Liam tried, but he couldn’t deny Tansy. Now it’s you. I’m glad you’re being sensible about it.”
“Do you know how crazy that sounds? You’re saying it’s sensible that I’m in love with a woman I’ve only known three days?” He laughed.
She quirked an amused eyebrow at him. “Are you asking me to reassure you or are you reassuring me that it can’t be so?”
It was pretty damn hard to fathom. “I think the former.”
“Oh, good, because I couldn’t deliver on the latter.”
And she had a point. The Swenson men did tend to love immediately, and it was usually hard and fast. Well, there had been Liam and Natalie, but they’d never been in love. They’d just been friends who were confused and wound up getting hitched.
“I really don’t know what to do about Delphi. I don’t want to freak her out, but I’m out of here in a couple of days. You know our whole relationship was based on it being short-term, but now... Hell, I don’t know. That’s a lie. I do know. She’s going to trip. It’s the damnedest thing—Liam and I have always shared this...I’m not sure how to explain it. It’s not like I can read his mind or ‘see’ what’s going on with him, but there are just some things I know—and when I know—it’s his stuff, not mine. Well, I’m getting flashes of that same knowing with Delphi. Trust me when I say she’s going to flip.”
Merrilee appeared totally unconcerned with his upcoming battle with Delphi. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing you’re trained in mounting offensives and detonating explosives without getting blown to bits, isn’t it?”
* * *
BY THE TIME she’d walked back to the bed-and-breakfast, Delphi was in a near state of panic. Everything had turned upside down on her. She heard Lars whistling under his breath as she got to the landing. She paused, but then decided against knocking. She needed a few minutes to herself to decompress from the day, from the weekend, from him.
She walked into her bedroom. The connecting door between their rooms stood open. Damn, she’d forgotten about that. They’d been going back and forth yesterday and this morning and it just made more sense than bopping out in the hall. They’d left it open when they both headed out this morning.
She walked over to the opening. Lars was stretched out on his bed, his hands folded beneath his head.
“Hi,” she said. “How was your visit out to the camp? What’d you think of it?”
Oh, God, she was awash in joy at simply seeing him, his smile. It was terrifying, especially in light of her conversation with Nelson.
“It was great.” His voice washed over her and she soaked up its cadence like a surgical sponge. “Liam has a cool operation set up out there. On one of your days off, you should check it out. And it’s a nice flight out. Definitely some pretty country.”
“Great idea.” She nodded politely. “I’ll have to do that before I go back.”
Lars tilted his head to one side and eyed her as if he knew she was freaking out inside. “How about your day? How was it?”
“Busy. It’s hard to believe there are that many people in this area, much less that they all need medical attention. Of course I’d say a third of them were there to see me, a third to bid Nelson farewell and only the last third were actually sick.”
“It’s going to be a week for you.” He patted the bed. “Take a load off, Blondie, and I’ll give you a back rub.”
Distance. Walls. Boundaries. “I appreciate the offer but I’m going to blow the cobwebs out with a bike ride.”
He nodded slowly. “I see.”
Dammit, he did see. “Lars, I...”
“Let’s talk about it, Delphi.”
“You do like to talk, Lars.” It wasn’t a compliment. Not the way she felt now.
“Don’t. And yeah, I tend to think that most things can be resolved with a decent conversation.” He sat up against the headboard and she noted just how impossibly wide his shoulders were. And she remembered how they’d felt and tasted when she’d kissed him on that very bed yesterday. “Of course there are cases like my mother where it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference, but then you’re not my mother.”
“No. I’m not.” She wanted to push him away. It was all too much, too fast. “I don’t even like your mother.” While it was true enough, she’d never been so rude in her life.
“You are spoiling for a fight, aren’t you, Blondie?” God, she hated it that he knew. “News flash—no one likes my mother. Mainly because she doesn’t like herself. It’s sad, but that’s the way it is. Now what’s got your nose so out of joint?”
“Nothing.” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. This was all his fault. She’d been minding her business on the plane. Why couldn’t he have just minded his? “Everything.”
“I’d say that about covers it and then some.”
“Skye’s pregnant.”
“That’s cool.” He looked at her face. “Isn’t it?”
“Of course. When a deliriously happy married couple are expecting, why wouldn’t they be excited?”
He just sat on the bed, waiting.
“She’s having twins.”
It started out as a smile and morphed into a full-blown grin.
“There’s no need for you to grin like a jackass.”
“That’s what has you so tweaked, isn’t it? And I bet you thought about me all day.”
He was unbearable. “You know, just because I told you how good you looked naked yesterday, there’s no reason for you to arrogantly assume far too much today.”
“Yep. You’re in love with me and it’s got you tweaked.”
“I am not in love with you. I love having sex with you. There’s a huge difference.”
“Yeah, you got that right. There is a huge difference, but lucky for us we’ve got both going.”
“Lars, I swear, you are not going to talk me to death on this.”
He stood up, standing next to the bed, his hands on his lean hips. “Didn’t you hear what I just indirectly said, woman? I love you. I’m in love with you.”
And he’d better just damn stay over there by the bed. She took a step back, feeling the press of the wall against her spine. “What happened to the rational man I made a deal with a couple of days ago?” She did her best to imitate him. “‘I’m temporary, Blondie. Five days and nothing more.’ Now you want to drag out love like it’s some prize. This is so not what we agreed to.”
“You’re right. We did not cut a deal up front to fall in love. I don’t think most people do.”
“We are not in love.”
“Speak for yourself.”
“Okay. I am not in love with you, Marine.”
“Bullshit.”
“What? Do you think you’re so irresistible that every woman who stumbles over you has to fall at your feet?”
“Nope. Just you.”
She felt desperate. He literally had her back against the wall.
“Don’t tell me how I do or don’t feel.”
“You know what your problem is, Blondie?”
“I have no interest in hearing your summation of my problems, Marine.”
“TDB—”
“I’m not versed in your military acronyms, Sergeant.”
“TDB. Too damn bad.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh is right. You’re going to hear it because I’m in charge of this particular operation.” She opened her mouth and he arrogantly shushed her. Shushed her. “I’m not through.”
“I don’t care.” The jackass shushed her so it was her turn to talk. “What you fail to understand is that on a temporary basis, you’re okay. But there are a lot of things I don’t like about you.”
“Like what? Name one thing.”
“You talk too much.”
He shrugged it off. “Name two things.”
“Easy. You always have to be in charge.”
“Bet you can’t name a third,” he said, riding roughshod over her very valid issues. “So, out of my many positive attributes, you can only come up with two things you don’t like about me.”
“Oh, I could come up with more, if you’d quit talking circles around me. How can I think when I can’t get a word in edgewise? And on top of it, I’m looking at you. I can’t think when I’m looking at you.”
She realized the error of her admission the moment the words left her mouth.
“You can’t think when you look at me?” He was even handsome when he smirked. “The problem isn’t that you don’t trust me or us. You don’t trust you, Delphi. You’re letting that doctor still screw up your life.”
“How can I trust you? You’ve changed the rules.” Just like DeWitt. “You can’t just arbitrarily decide to rewrite the terms.”
“Okay, then I have a proposal.”
“I will not marry you. You’ve really lost it.”
“Easy, Blondie, I’d have to ask you first.”
Ouch. That was kind of embarrassing—not that she’d wanted him to ask her to marry him. That would be even worse than him saying they were in love. “What do you propose?”
“We scrap it all and start from scratch. Wipe out the last three days. We start fresh with different terms.”
“That’s silly.”
As usual he ignored her. “So, Blondie. I’m here for the next few days. I’m looking for a wife and I’m also all for having some really hot, mind-blowing sex. Falling in love is fully admissible and so is establishing a long-term, ongoing relationship.” See, that’s what she was talking about.
“Look, Marine, that worked with me one time but I’m a quick study. I’m not falling for that bowl-me-over-with-your-charm ruse.”
“Oh, is that what I did? I had no idea you found me charming.”
God, she was so frustrated it was all she could do not to stamp her foot at him. Instead she turned on her heel and marched back through the connecting door. “I should’ve ignored you from the beginning on the plane. I should’ve stood my ground then and I wouldn’t be in this predicament now.”
“And exactly what predicament are you in, Blondie?”
Damn him, she very nearly tripped up and blurted out that she’d fallen in love with him. But she didn’t.
“I’m going for a bike ride.”
“Hmm. You know how I love those shorts on you.”
She didn’t stamp her foot, but she did slam the connecting door...and derived great satisfaction from it.
Unfortunately, she could still hear him. “I’ll pick you up for dinner and a movie around nine.”
She paused in the middle of taking off her scrubs. Dinner and a movie? There was no movie theater here. The man was crazy. And annoying. And altogether charmingly mad.
He’d almost convinced her that for them to have fallen in love in three short days was not only plausible, but probable.
Being wrong about DeWitt had wrecked her career.
Being wrong about Lars would wreck her heart.
He was a most dangerous man.