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AS I DROVE BACK TO my place, I thought about Ellie.
How could I not? Being in her house like that, I saw a different side of her, something more intimate than what I had noted back at the office. Her looks seemed to soften into something more hometown-beauty, girl-next-door, in her flannels and jeans, her hair pulled back so she could take care of anything that needed to be done.
And she had seemed more vulnerable than before, too. Maybe it was being back in her home which had thrown her off. From what I had been able to glean from the pictures on the walls, she had flown her mother out to see her in a few different spots across the world, but it seemed unlikely she had come home for any length of time while she was away. Maybe she had been avoiding it? Maybe there was something here I was missing, some part of her past in this place she didn’t want to talk about or consider. I didn’t know how she could leave for so long and come back and expect it all to be the same, but our minds could play some crazy tricks when we wanted to believe what was easiest for us.
Some part of me was curious to know what had driven her away for as long as it had. Her father wasn’t around anymore, though why, I didn’t know. It didn't seem my place to ask. His pictures were still on the walls, so it wasn’t like her family wanted to forget him. Maybe he had passed when she was young? It seemed the most likely. Perhaps that was why she had run, because she couldn’t stand the grief of living there without him.
But even that answer seemed too easy, too simple. There had to be something else. My mind rolled everything we’d said to each other over and over again on repeat. When she had broken down for a single moment—her voice catching, her breath coming a little faster, her whole body stiffening with discomfort as she realized the enormity of the task in front of her—I could tell there was more going on than just surprise at the state of her mother’s house. Some other pain was under there, too, though I doubted she would share it so soon. With me, or with anyone.
I would be spending a little more time with her soon enough, anyway. Should I have agreed to help out the way I had? Maybe I had jumped the gun a little bit, signing myself up to help, but I couldn’t leave them to deal with it alone. I knew what needed to be taken care of in the house, it only made sense for me to do what I could. I would call in some help if I needed it, and I would get the house back to where it needed to be for Celeste.
Would Ellie leave once it was done? Maybe. Probably, even. She clearly had plenty of life to get back to outside of this town, and there was a part of me curious to find out what it mind have been. What was it she did? Money wasn’t an issue, if she had been flying her mother out to be with her. But Celeste didn’t seem to know what it was her daughter actually did for a living, which made me even more curious. Maybe she didn’t want me to know, or maybe she honestly had no clue herself.
Either way, I was going to be spending a whole lot more time around the family for the foreseeable future, so I had no doubt I would get the answers to my questions one way or another. I pulled the car up outside the house, and I was about to climb out when my phone sprang to life.
I answered it at once, half-expecting to hear Ellie on the other end of the line—until I remembered she didn’t even have my number. We didn’t know each other that well yet.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Doctor Burgess,” Rita replied. She sounded tired, as though she had just been pulled out of bed.
“What’s up?” I asked, a sinking feeling in my chest.
“It’s Ewan,” she explained. “There’s been an accident down at the farm, he got his leg caught in the...well, they need you down there.”
I stifled a sigh. I really wanted to get to bed, but it looked like I wasn’t going to get so lucky.
“I’ll get down there as soon as I can,” I replied, and I pushed the key back into the ignition and turned to head to the small farm outside of town to see what the hell had happened there. Ewan McCallister, the guy who owned it, was constantly in and out of the clinic with injuries and complaints, for him and his staff—whether it was someone getting bitten by a horse or falling over a fence, there always seemed to be something going on there.
It was a quick drive, and soon, I arrived at the farmhouse; Ewan’s wife Lana was outside, and she waved me in.
“He got his foot caught in one of the electric fences,” she explained hurriedly as she took me inside. “And he twisted his ankle badly trying to get it out. We were hoping you could patch him up so he can get back out to the farm today.”
I kneeled down to take a look at Ewan’s foot as his wife put on a pot of coffee, seeming to sense how tired I was. I sipped it as I gave Ewan instructions on how best to take care of it, though I doubted he wanted to listen. His unmatched ability to ignore my advice was the reason I kept seeing him back over and over again, though he would have just called it bad luck.
“You need to stay off that foot for at least a few days,” I warned him. “Ice it if you can, and keep it elevated to keep the swelling down. Try not to do anything too strenuous over the next couple of weeks...”
I trailed off as I spoke, practically able to see his irritation at what I was suggesting. I sighed. There was no point with this guy, there really wasn’t. He had his mind made up about everything, and nothing was going to get him to see how much damage he would do if he kept pushing. This guy was going to get to fifty with a body that looked seventy, and all I could do was try my best to stop him rendering too much damage.
Lana thanked me when I left, and I paused in the doorway to try and talk to her.
“You really have to try and keep him still to get him to heal,” I warned her, and she raised her eyebrows at me, corners of her eyes crinkling as she smiled incredulously.
“With respect, doctor,” she replied. “I don’t think I’m going to have much more luck with that than you have.”
I sighed and smiled. She had a point. Some people just wouldn’t hear what was best for them, even when it was coming from people who truly wanted to see them heal. I hoped Celeste wouldn’t turn out to be one of them, for Ellie’s sake, at least.
I headed back home, and made myself a quick dinner before I jumped in a shower and headed to bed. When I lay down that evening, I was so exhausted, I knew I should have just been able to pass out on the spot. But instead, I found myself wondering what it might have been like if she was there beside me. If the two of us were together, Ellie and I.
I let my mind linger on the image for a moment. Nothing sexual—not really—just her next to me, her golden hair laid out over the pillow beside me, her green eyes fixed on mine, her nose scrunched up as she laughed at the something. I grinned at the thought of it.
Shit, did I have a crush? It had been a hell of a long time since I had even considered the possibility of liking someone as more than a friend. I had been so focused on my career for so long that the thought of dating someone had never really crossed my mind. Yeah, there had been a few girls along the way, but none of them had really lasted long, and frankly, none of them had really made enough of an impression for me to want them to, either. But Ellie? There was something about her, about the way she carried herself and the secrets she seemed to be keeping.
Sure, okay, I had a little crush on her. She was the first person I had met in this town who had really felt like a contemporary—coming from the city, from across the world, she seemed to have had something close to the same experience as me. Most people here, for better or worse, had never made it out of this town, and sometimes, it showed just a little too clearly.
But Ellie was different. Different from everyone else I had met here. And I liked that. I was curious to find out what I could about her. Maybe even curious enough to get her in my bed, at least for one night...
I pushed that thought down quickly, smirking to myself as I imagined it. Yeah, never going to happen. She would be out of this town as soon as she got the chance, and no matter how cute she might have been, it wasn’t like I could just up and follow her. It would be fun to flirt a little as long as she was here, but I wasn’t going to read into it any more than that. I wasn’t going to allow myself to get distracted by Ellie just because she was hot, and just because there was more I wanted to know about her.
I was smarter than that.
At least, I hoped I was. Because the thought of her in bed next to me was a little more enticing than it should have been.
