Beth stared at Eli from the passenger seat as he stood outside her opened door.
“I…don’t understand what’s happening here,” she told him.
Eli’s brows pulled together under the shadow of his cowboy hat. “Hopping down and out of the truck is a bit more perilous than climbing in.” He nodded at her cast. “Thought you might need a hand.”
She shook her head. “I mean, thanks for the chivalry and all, but why would I be getting out of the truck here?” She glanced at what looked like a modest ranch home behind him, a combination of light blue siding and a reddish-brown brick. If it wasn’t for the sign above the door that read MURPHY VETERINARY CLINIC plain as day, she would have thought it was someone’s home. One thing was certain, though. This was not Sam and Delaney’s home.
Eli still looked perplexed, the crease between his brows seeming to take up permanent residence. “Because this is where the clinic is?” He shoved his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. “And the guesthouse?”
Beth’s stomach sank. She didn’t know what was happening, but she somehow knew it wasn’t good. She picked her tote bag up off the floor in front of her and held it to her chest as if it could protect her from the outcome of this scenario.
Eli’s expression morphed from confusion to what looked like realization as his eyes opened wide and he huffed out a laugh.
“She didn’t tell you. Unbelievable.” He mumbled the last word as if it was only meant for himself.
Meanwhile, Beth’s palms were starting to sweat, and that sinking thing that her stomach was doing turned into a sort of cartwheel or flip-flop. Maybe with a somersault or two.
“Eli, where did my sister tell you to take me?” She squeezed the quilted cotton of her bag, sure that it would leave handprints when she let go.
Eli crossed his arms and raised his brows.
“She told me to give you an hour to get settled into the guesthouse before getting you started at the clinic.”
The clinic?
The clinic?
Beth didn’t remember deciding to do it. She just slid out of her seat and onto the truck’s running board, teetering on her right sneaker before hopping onto the dusty drive. She pitched forward, and Eli made a move to catch her, but she held up a firm index finger, keeping him at bay. She righted herself and thanked the universe for letting her keep her pride intact. Then she marched toward him, slowly and with her uneven gait, thanks to the extra height of the cast.
“Do you mean to tell me”—she pointed at him, the tip of her finger grazing his forearm still resting against his chest—“that my sister invited me to stay with her and then pawned me off on you as an unwilling tenant and, what? Animal whisperer? Because I’m not the Spence sister who got that gene.”
He dropped his arms, but she was frozen where she stood, finger still pointed in accusation as she ran her conversation with Delaney back and forth in her head.
I’m sending you a ticket.
Beth had joked about the price. Delaney had joked about the luggage.
Oh god.
Delaney never said “You’ll be staying with us,” but why would Beth ever assume otherwise?
“Exactly,” she finally said aloud.
“Are you still talking to me?” Eli asked.
Beth startled and stumbled backward. Eli caught her this time with an arm wrapped firmly around her back. She sucked in a breath as she felt the tips of his fingers press against her shirt, though the skin beneath prickled…or tingled. She couldn’t exactly tell. All she knew was that her pulse was racing and her head was swimming.
“I’m okay,” she finally told him, shifting her weight to her good leg.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
If she’d busted a stiletto dancing in a Vegas club only to be caught by some smarmy tourist, the question would have been laced with innuendo, the expression on the man’s face anything from lewd smile to Zoolander-level smolder. She’d seen enough of both. But Eli stared at her with a clenched jaw and hooded eyes that transformed his light blue irises to the darkest of ocean depths.
“Yes,” she whispered, her voice nowhere to be found.
“Okay,” he responded, his voice rough as he gently let her go.
She brushed her palms down her shirt, smoothing wrinkles that had set in during the drive only for them to reappear once she lowered her hands.
“I’m not a damsel in distress,” she muttered, sounding less convincing than she’d hoped. “I can still do all the things I did before this.” She stuck her booted leg out, the heel kicking up dust in the slight breeze.
“An Achilles tear is often career-ending for a dancer,” the surgeon had said. “I’ve seen it in several other patients. You’ll walk just fine, and dancing for exercise or recreation? Sure. You can still do that. But the stress you’d put on the tendon—not to mention other muscles and joints that would try to compensate for the injury—if you tried to go back to dancing full-time would only exacerbate the situation. If you rupture it again—”
“You’re wrong,” Beth had interrupted. “I mean, you could be wrong. Not every patient is the same. You don’t know me or what I can do.”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t,” Eli responded, bringing her back to the present. He nodded toward her cast. “But you are injured. And when you’re hurt, you don’t have to bear it in silence or prove you’re still you. Just—I don’t know—be hurt and accept a helping hand if you need it. There’s no shame in that.”
She squared her shoulders and stood up straight. “Yeah, well, my sister—the one who’s supposed to have my back no matter what—obviously doesn’t believe I’m still me, or she wouldn’t have manipulated me into a trip I didn’t want to go on, a guesthouse I have no intention of staying in, and a job I’m certainly not going to take. So I’m sorry if you drove me all the way here for nothing, but I’ll just call a cab or a rideshare or something and head back to the airport.”
Beth pivoted back toward the truck, dumped her tote on the floor, and attempted to climb back into the cab to fish her suitcase out of the small back seat, but it was too cumbersome to lift it on her own. Not that she was about to admit that to Eli. No, she’d rather stay where she was, on her stomach halfway between the front and back of the cab, legs flailing out of the opened door as she continued to struggle…until her phone rang.
She reached into her tote, rummaging through its contents until she found the device.
She scowled when she saw her sister’s name on the screen.
“You tricked me,” Beth answered with no other greeting.
“Nolan is okay. Thanks for asking. Her fever came down, and Sam finally got her down for a nap,” Delaney responded, fighting one guilt trip with another.
“That’s not fair,” Beth countered. “For all I know, you made all that stuff up about Nolan being sick as part of your grand plan to—to what? Get me to move to Middle of Nowhere, California, and answer phones for the rest of my life?”
Delaney laughed. Laughed. “My grand plan? No. I guess my daughter spiking a fever was just a happy accident. Jeez, Bethy, will you just hear me out?”
What was Beth going to do? She was planking half inside and half outside a truck that wasn’t hers with her belongings stuck in the back seat and no clue whether there were any flights heading back to Vegas before the end of the day.
She groaned. “Fine. It’s not like I have anything better to do at the moment.”
Delaney sighed. “I’m sorry about what happened at the audition, Bethy. And I know the last month has sucked.”
“Understatement of the year,” Beth mumbled.
“I know,” Delaney said again, and Beth could hear the sincerity in her sister’s voice, which made it really hard to stay mad at her…until she remembered the whole manipulation scheme.
“You still tricked me,” Beth reminded her.
“You’re right.” Delaney didn’t even attempt to deny it. “But the doctor transitioned you to the walking cast a week ago, and you still hadn’t left the apartment.”
Beth’s mouth fell open, but before she could respond, her sister continued.
“Mom and Dad were worried, so I said I’d get you out of the house for a bit.”
Beth dropped her forehead against the leather seat, banging it softly a few times before propping herself back up on her elbows.
“A bit? You set me up in a guesthouse and got me a job. Even if you’re on the doctor’s side and believe my career is over, you’re supposed to lie to me and tell me it’s not. You’re supposed to make me believe that this isn’t the end of the road for me so that—I don’t know—maybe I’ll believe it too. But, Lanes? You’re not supposed to sign me up to answer the phone at a vet clinic.” Beth’s throat grew tight, and her eyes burned.
“Oh, Bethy.” Delaney paused. “I believe in you to the moon and back. Always. But I can’t make you believe in yourself. That’s all you. What I can do is give you a change of scenery and a change of pace while you heal, and I mean more than just the foot in the cast.”
Beth didn’t respond. She didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t either cause a rift between her and her sister or turn herself into a snotty, blubbering mess. In another month, she’d be out of the cast. And six months down the road, she’d likely have full use of her leg and ankle again. But that couldn’t be it.
“Look, if you hate the Murphy guesthouse, you are more than welcome to stay here. I just figured you’d appreciate sleeping through the night, but if you want to get up with Nolan at two and sometimes four in the morning, I won’t turn you down.”
Beth let out something between a whimper and laugh. “She’s still not sleeping?”
“Sam and I are crossing our fingers that by the time she turns two, we’ll be fully functioning humans again.”
“And the job?” she added.
Delaney sighed. “Anything is better than staying holed up in your apartment grieving alone. Stay a month until the cast comes off. Stay until you’re done with physical therapy. I’ll help you find a great PT, one who specializes in dance injuries. And then, I don’t know, back to New York to try again if that’s what you want. I’m on your team, Bethy. I promise. But until you’re able to live the exact life you want, I thought maybe just living—like…having a reason to get out of bed in the morning—might be enough. Plus there’s me.” Beth’s sister let out a nervous laugh. “I just want what’s best for you, Bethy, but you never would have come to Meadow Valley if I’d laid this all out ahead of time, am I right?”
Beth groaned. “Of course you’re right.” She let out a long, slow breath. “I can come hang by you and Sam any time I want?”
“Any time you want.”
“And this job… It’s a paying job?”
Delaney snorted. “Of course it is. And Eli? He’s a really good guy, you know. Everything he does for the shelter is pro bono. A guy like that’s gotta be a pretty decent boss.”
“I guess,” Beth mumbled.
“Why don’t you get settled, let Eli show you around the property, and I’ll pop by after dinner.”
Dinner. Beth hadn’t even had lunch yet.
Her stomach growled in protest.
“Okay,” she relented.
“Okay?” Delaney echoed, and Beth could hear the smile in her sister’s voice. “You’re staying?”
“For now,” Beth told her. But the first thing she was doing once she was settled in tomorrow was finding a physical therapist who would do whatever it took to get Beth one more shot at Radio City.
“I’m so happy!” Delaney blew her a kiss through the phone. “I’ll see you later tonight. Bye, Bethy.”
“Bye, Lanes.”
Beth ended the call.
She craned her neck to glance over her shoulder. Eli was still standing where she’d left him, head down as he tapped something out onto his own phone. This was her cue to make her awkward and ungraceful exit from the truck…again.
She slid slowly on her stomach until her right toe touched the ground. She lowered her cast once she found purchase.
When she spun to face Eli, her stomach growled again. For food, of course. She needed food.
He held his hat at his side now, tilting his head up so his gaze met hers. “Last flight from Reno to Vegas leaves in fifteen minutes. I hate to break it to you, but you’re stuck here at least for the night. I can take you to Delaney’s, though, since I know you have no intention of staying here.”
Beth had snapped at the man who’d been nothing but helpful since he met her at baggage claim, and now she approached him with her tail between her legs.
“I’m…sorry, Eli. This is all between me and my sister. No, it’s actually between me and me, but we don’t need to get into that. I shouldn’t have taken the smile comment out on you earlier, and I shouldn’t have taken Delaney’s little trick out on you either. I’m actually a pretty pleasant person when I’m not in the middle of a deep emotional crisis, but we don’t need to go there right now either. Where I would like to go, if it’s okay with you, is the guesthouse. Where I’ll be staying. Then I’d love to know where I can grab something to eat. And after that, if you’ll still have me—temporarily—I’d like to see the clinic and hear more about how I can help out while I’m here.”
Eli’s lips parted, and she was ready for him to tell her that he’d actually had enough of the younger Spence sister and would like nothing more than to pawn her off on Delaney, Sam, and Beth’s rarely sleeping niece. Instead, the corners of his mouth turned up, and his eyes crinkled at the corners.
Again her stomach responded, loudly, confusing a smile with something it wanted to devour.
“Are you smiling at this turn of events?” she asked, suddenly famished.
“Are you begging for your job back?”
Beth scoffed.
Eli raised an eyebrow.
“Ugh. Fine. Yes, I’m asking if I can still have the job for, like, a month. Maybe two. Tops.”
He crossed his arms and pursed his lips as if mulling the idea over. Finally, he held out his right hand. “Okay, but if you’re good at it, I may have a hard time letting you go.” His eyes widened. “From the job, I mean.”
Beth laughed. “You’ve got yourself a deal, Dr. Murphy. And trust me, I’m not a big fan of animals and they’re not a fan of me. You’ll be counting the days until I’m out of your hair.”
They shook hands.
Beth’s belly waged a war of cartwheels and somersaults the moment his large hand enveloped hers.
“Food!” she blurted, light-headed now. “I. Need. Food.”