Trading Secrets

As his eyes lifted to meet hers now, she had the feeling he remembered those disturbing moments, too.

He also looked as if he’d rather not think about them.

Clearing his throat, he absently rubbed his shoulder as voices drifted toward them from the hall.

“So,” he said, dropping his hand to push it into the pocket of his lab coat. He nodded toward the bandage beneath her bangs. “I see Bess got hold of you.”

“She got me on my way in.” Feeling a sudden need to move herself, thinking it best to get her business here over with, she edged toward the door and closed it with a quiet click.

“There’s another reason I came by,” she admitted, reclaiming her spot by the picture of his friend. His relationship with the beautiful woman in the photo was none of her business. He was none of her business. At least not beyond extracting one small promise. “I really did want to make sure you were okay,” she hurried to explain. “And I’m really glad you are. But there’s something I need from you.”

Curiosity creased his brow. Or maybe it was caution. With the discomfiting feeling it was more the latter, she took a step closer, reducing the space between them so she could lower her voice even more. She didn’t think Rhonda or Bess would repeat anything personal that went on in the clinic. At least, she’d never heard that they had, and people in Maple Mountain knew who they could confide in and who couldn’t keep her—or his—mouth shut. But it sounded as if there were other people out there now.

“I know you omitted parts of what we talked about when you told Bess that I was mugged. I don’t mind that you told her,” she hurried on, “about the mugging, I mean. And I appreciate that you wanted her to check on me. But I need to know you won’t say anything about why I didn’t go to the police. I want to fit back in here the way I did before I left. This is really the only place I have to go right now,” she explained, the anxiety in her expression sneaking into her voice. “And I’d really hate to be the subject of speculation and gossip.” She’d had more than enough of that where she’d just come from. “It’s awful when you can’t go anywhere without someone whispering behind your back.”

Greg’s glance narrowed, his sense of caution growing in direct proportion to his interest. There was an air of style and polish about the lovely young woman anxiously watching him that she could have only acquired in the city. The unhurried, thoughtful pattern of speech possessed by many of those born in the region seemed to have been consciously trained from her voice. Dressed as she had been last night in a baggy sweatshirt and jeans, he hadn’t paid any attention to the layer of sophistication that set her apart from most of the area’s residents. But he hadn’t exactly been on top of his game last night, either.

The one thing he definitely had picked up was the feeling that she was running from something. Seeing the disquiet in her eyes, he was even more convinced of it now.

There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that she was seeking escape. From what, he had no idea. He just knew that if there was anything he recognized, it was that need. Until he’d turned twenty, he’d lived with it nearly every day of his life.

Three months ago that need had returned with a vengeance.

That was when his father had died—and left him a fortune he absolutely did not want, one that his father never intended him to have, and which was exerting a certain control over his life simply because he now had to deal with the only thing his father ever truly cared about. His money.

The thoughts kicked up acid his stomach. Not a soul in Maple Mountain knew his inheritance existed. No one in Maple Mountain even knew his father had died. Or that he’d had one living for that matter. He didn’t speak of his past beyond what little he could get away with, and the last thing he would have wanted were condolences from well-meaning, good-hearted people who would have made him the main topic on the local grapevine—especially if they knew about the money.

When an inheritance was involved, people tended to want to know what a person was going do with it. And when. His attorney, his father’s attorney and Elizabeth Brandt, the woman he’d soon be moving in with, were certainly anxious for the information. Part of his problem was that just hearing those questions knotted his gut with reminders of why he wanted nothing to do with it at all. Every time any one of them mentioned the estate, he felt a powerful need to escape. The rest of the time, he simply felt…restless.

Except for last night. Only then, when he’d experienced the odd and compelling comfort in the arms of a woman he didn’t even know, had he not been aware of the restiveness he lived with nearly every other hour of the day.

Watching that woman now, he tried to tell himself he had only imagined that peace. Endorphins had probably been released into his blood when the trauma to his body had been eased. Or release from the pain had come as such a relief that he would have felt that comfort with anyone.

Rationalization helped. It just didn’t explain how the scent and feel of her had taunted every nerve in his body. Or how watching her mouth as she waited for his assurance made those nerves tighten all over again.

“I know what you mean about talk,” he confided, forcing his glance up. She seemed desperate for his discretion. Quietly so, but desperate nonetheless. “And I understand how important reputations are around here. Stop worrying. Okay? I’m not going to say anything.”

He wondered if she was always so easy to read. Or if the anxiety he sensed in her had simply robbed her of the ability to mask what she would prefer others didn’t see. The distress in her eyes faded with undisguised relief.

The warmth of her thankful smile washed over him, soft, inviting and as gentle as spring rain. The same pull he’d felt toward her last night tugged hard in his chest. He’d barely noticed it when a tap on the door jerked his attention from the sensation, along with the curiosity about her that grew with each passing second.

The door opened. Bess’s head poked around it, the silver in her tightly curled hair catching the overhead light.

“I just had the most brilliant idea.” With that announcement, she left the door open and walked in, smiling at Jenny before she looked to him. “Jenny’s mom and I still exchange Christmas cards,” she prefaced, ignoring his blank look and Jenny’s quick confusion. “She always writes one of those Christmas letters. A nice, newsy one that tells how her children and grandchildren are and how her garden was the past summer.

“In her Christmas letter last year,” she continued, looking thoughtful, “she mentioned that Jenny was still at the same big brokerage she’d gone to work for when she’d moved to Boston. Salomon something.”

“Salomon Bennett?” he asked, identifying the huge investment firm his more affluent acquaintances used.

“That’s it.” Bess gave a nod. “I remember she also mentioned that Jenny was still administrative assistant to one of the vice presidents. Since a job like that must require considerable organizational skill, and since Rhonda is going on maternity leave as soon as she goes into labor, we should hire her.”

Without waiting for a response, she turned to Jenny. “Can you do accounting on a computer?”

Greg’s eyebrow’s merged. “Hang on, Bess. We can’t just—”

“It depends on the program,” Jenny cut in, uncomfortably aware that Greg wasn’t nearly as enamored with the idea as Bess was. Not that she could blame him. What he knew about her hardly recommended her as an employee. “I’ve used several. But I just got a job. I’m starting at the diner Thursday. Dinner shift.”

Greg’s quick objection turned just as quickly to confusion. “Why did you take a job there?”

“Because I need it,” she replied, ever so reasonably.

Tolerance laced his tone. “What I mean,” he explained, “is why wait tables with your qualifications? Why not go where you can get a job that pays? You could apply at the bank or the school district over in St. Johnsbury. I know it’s a drive, but you’d make three times the money there.”

The man had the eyes of a hawk, the instincts of a wolf after prey. His powers of observation weren’t too shabby, either. She supposed all that came in handy when trying to figuring out how to help a patient, but when a person wanted to keep certain things to herself, those abilities were downright unnerving.

Her shrug didn’t feel nearly as casual as she hoped it looked. “As you said, it’s a long drive, and I don’t want the commute. Especially in the winter.” Both he and Bess should appreciate that. Ice and blowing snow often turned the hour-plus drive into two hours or more. “I worked at the diner before I left, so it’s not as if I don’t have experience there, too.”

She also hadn’t had to supply references to get the job. References were a major problem at the moment. No company hired without references, and she couldn’t give those she had. That was the main reason she’d come back to Maple Mountain.

“Aside from that,” she said, more comfortable with Bess’s faintly perplexed expression, “I don’t have an updated résumé to give you.” She smiled, hoping to end the conversation before either could ask more questions. It was obvious from Greg’s frown that something wasn’t adding up to him. “Thanks for thinking of me, though.”

The sound Bess made was somewhere between a tsk and a snort.

“You don’t need to show us a résumé. You’re qualified. You have a good work ethic.” Her tone turned confiding. “I know that because of how hard you worked to get your associate’s degree,” she told her, “and by how well you did for yourself in Boston. Even if you don’t know the program we use, Rhonda can help you figure it out. You’re experienced, and experienced is what we need.”

Looking utterly convinced that she had just solved their staffing problem, she glanced to where Greg stood with his forehead furrowed. “It’s not as if she needs character references,” she insisted, clearly not understanding his hesitation. “I can vouch for her myself. So can half the town. Aside from that, we haven’t had any other qualified applicants, and Rhonda is already overdue.”

“And feeling every minute of it,” the miserable-looking office manager announced in low tones as she walked in. “Sorry for the interruption, but Lorna Bagley just brought in her youngest with some sort of rash. I put them back in the isolation room since Bertie Buell is here for her blood pressure check. You know how Bertie is about being around anything she thinks might be contagious.”

At the mention of patients, Greg turned his frown to his watch. “You take Bertie, Bess. I’ll get the rash,” he said to Rhonda. “Tell Lorna I’ll be right there.”

Grasping the opportunity for escape, undeniably grateful for it, Jenny watched Bess, thwarted and disgruntled, head for the door as she backed toward it herself.

“Thank you, Bess,” she called, thinking of the bandage, the ointment, the welcome and for thinking of her for the job that, if not for Greg and his obvious reservations, she would have loved to take.

“I didn’t mean to keep you so long,” she said, turning back to see him move to the door himself.

He stopped an arm’s length away, his hand on the edge of the door, his body towering over hers. Glancing from the swath of blue covering the middle of his impressive chest, thinking it highly unfair that she could so easily recall how hard it had felt beneath her fingers, she jerked her eyes to his.

“Take care of that shoulder,” she reminded him, and slipped out with the feel of his uncertainty about her hounding every step.

The positive thing about a place as small as Maple Mountain was that neighbors always knew if a person had a problem or if they needed help. If someone hadn’t been seen or heard from for a while, someone else would inevitably call or drop by just to make sure everything was all right. People watched out for each other. People cared about each other.

Jenny had missed that.

What she hadn’t missed was the relative lack of privacy that came with such neighborly concern.

The people in and around Maple Mountain were a fiercely independent lot, opinionated to a fault about politics, their land and protecting it from anyone who might try to change the way of life that had worked just fine for them for however long they’d lived there. But for all that independence, they were also intensely interested in everything that went on around them. Strangers were easily identified, and a car didn’t pass through town that someone along Main Street didn’t note its license plate to see where it was from.

A car with plates from any state other than Vermont would elicit speculation about where its occupants were going and how long they would stay. A vehicle they recognized as belonging to their little part of the world invited solemn conjecture about its occupant’s destination. Especially if they knew, or knew of, its owner.

Old Parker must be heading into St. Johnsbury for that tractor part he’s needin’.

Bet Essie’s on her way out to her daughter’s to help with the twins.

Or observations about the vehicle itself.

Been a while since Charlie washed that truck of his.

Wonder how long it’ll be before Amos’s bumper falls off.

There wasn’t much that slipped by the locals. Where other locals were concerned, anyway. Visitors were treated politely, especially when they came to vacation on the lake in the summer and for the festivals that fed the town’s coffers. Their spending helped pay for everything from the newly paved parking lot at the community center to sports equipment for the elementary school. But only the residents warranted true interest in conversations at the diner or around the checkerboard at the general store. Especially if whatever that person was up to proved more interesting than what seemed to be going on anywhere else.

That was why Jenny wasn’t surprised when, by six o’clock that evening, she’d had no fewer than four visitors, including Joe who’d stopped by with a crowbar when he’d heard that she hadn’t wanted to pay ten dollars for one at the general store. He’d helped her pry off the particularly stubborn board covering the living room window and told her he’d be back tomorrow with a ladder and help her take the boards off the windows upstairs.

Carrie Higgins, who’d been Carrie Rogers when she’d hung out with Jenny’s older sister and Dora’s daughter, Kelsey, at the old grist mill behind the house, had stopped by to see for herself that Jenny was actually back and living in her grandma’s old place. Jenny hadn’t invited her in. She hadn’t invited anyone in because she hadn’t wanted to lie and say her furniture hadn’t been delivered yet, which was the only way she could think to explain why her bed was a pile of blankets and a comforter in a corner of the kitchen.

Carrie hadn’t seemed to mind the lack of an invitation. She’d just wanted to say hi and bring her a welcome-back Jell-O salad, the kind with pistachio pudding in it. So they’d stood outside under the old maple tree, Jenny holding the plastic bowl and Carrie holding her ten-month-old on her hip while her four-and six-year-olds tormented a caterpillar and promised each other they’d get together soon.

Gap-toothed Smiley Jefferson, who had the postal route and was the mayor’s brother-in-law, stopped to see if she would be putting up a mailbox, since the one out by the road had fallen to wood rot years ago, or if she’d be using a box at the post office.

Sally McNeff, who now ran her aging mother’s bookstore, stopped by on her way home from work to welcome Jenny home and tell her she was so sorry she’d been mugged.

Jenny had been alone for all of fifteen minutes and was inside washing the multi-paned front window when another vehicle pulled onto the rutted driveway.

Across the narrow ribbon of road that led into town, the land rose in a long and gentle hill. Only the trees at the top were illuminated by sunlight. In another hour it would be dusk. But just then the air glowed golden. In that gentle light she watched a gray bull-nosed truck rumble toward the house. She had already cleaned the outside of the glass, and light spilled across the dusty hardwood floor, taking some of the dreariness from the room. Or maybe simply illuminating it. In the brighter light, she could more easily see how badly the ivy-print wallpaper was pealing.

The truck pulled to a stop behind her sporty black sedan. Finishing the pane she was washing, careful of the crack in it so she wouldn’t wind up with a hole where the foot-wide pane had been, she tried to make out who was driving it. With the wide maple trees shading the weedy and overgrown lawn, all she could see was the pattern of light and shadow on the windshield.

Curiosity got the better of her. Leaving her task, she absently tugged her short white T-shirt over the waistband of her denim capris and moved to the open front door as the truck came to a stop. The screen door screeched in protest when she pushed it open.

Reminding herself to go through the collection of odds and ends on the back porch to see if a can of oil lurked in their midst, she sidestepped the loose board on the porch and came to a halt at the top step.

Greg climbed from behind the wheel. Before she could even begin to imagine why he was there, the slam of his door sent birds squawking as they scattered from the trees.

He had her yellow towel with him. Seeing her framed by the posts on the porch, he headed toward her, his stride relaxed and unhurried. Without the lab coat covering his golf shirt and khakis, she could see that the sling completely encased his arm, holding it nearly as close to his body as he’d held it himself last night.

She needed to forget last night. Certain parts of it, anyway.

“I hear Charlie Moorehouse loaned you his truck,” she called, thinking the comment as good a way as any to keep things neighborly.

She watched him glance toward Charlie’s newest acquisition. The fact that the old guy had lent the doctor his pride and joy attested to how grateful he had been to Greg for getting him through his last bout of gout.

“He’s saved me a lot of hassle,” he admitted, sounding grateful himself. She’d also heard that truck was an automatic. With the use of only one arm, he couldn’t have driven anything else. “He dropped it off for me after he and his son towed my SUV into St. Johnsbury.”

“How long before you get it back?”

“Not sure,” he replied, and stopped at the foot of the steps. He hadn’t come to exchange small talk. He wanted something. She could tell from the way his deceptively casual glance slid over her frame, his mouth forming an upside down U in the moments before he held out her neatly folded towel.

He also didn’t appear totally convinced that he should be there.

“Do you have a few minutes?” he asked as she took what he offered.

“Sure.” Despite a quick sense of unease, she gave a shrug. “I was just cleaning.”

Behind her, the window sparkled. Above, cobwebs laced the corners of the porch roof.

“That ought to keep you busy for a while.”

“Until spring, I would imagine.”

The U gave way to a faint smile. “Then, I won’t keep you long. Bess is on me to hire you,” he admitted, getting straight to the point. “She said she’s sure you’ll have no trouble picking up medical terminology and our procedures. Since you appear to have considerable office experience, I wondered if you wanted to tell me why I shouldn’t offer you the job.”

The question threw her. So did the intent way he watched her as she crossed her arms over the folded yellow terry cloth and waited for her to either recover from his blunt query or invite him in and answer it.

“Because I already have one?”

Something in his eyes seemed to soften. She wasn’t sure what it was. It hinted at patience, yet looked more like weariness. The draining kind of weariness that sucked the spirit from deep inside a man.

“You know that’s not what I mean.”

Unfortunately, she did. She also knew she had several very good reasons to ignore the quick tug of empathy she felt for what she saw. For starters, if he was tired, it was probably because he hadn’t slept well with his arm throbbing or aching or whatever it was probably still doing. More important, he seemed far more perplexed by her than interested in her sympathy.

Perplexed didn’t begin to describe what Greg felt when it came to the quietly pretty woman warily eyeing him from three steps away. The more he learned about her, the more bits and pieces of her past and personality he picked up, the more mysterious she seemed. And the more interested he became.

That interest bothered him. She wasn’t his patient, so he couldn’t excuse his curiosity about her as a way to better tend her needs. Even if she had been a patient, his interest went light-years beyond the professional. Yet he wasn’t about to fully acknowledge the inexplicable pull he felt toward her. He was already involved with someone. He had been for two years. Unlike the other men in his family, he would not cheat on a woman—even if he was having serious second thoughts about the relationship.

A familiar tension started creeping through him. Colliding with that struggle were all the problems he’d acquired since his father died. Not a week had gone by in the past few months that the mail hadn’t brought a new batch of documents, receipts and queries he didn’t want to deal with. He’d gotten to where he’d hated to see Smiley coming, and had finally asked his attorney to hold on to everything until he could get to Boston to take care of whatever needed to be done. His attorney had now taken to e-mailing him, wanting to know when that would be.

He shoved down the resentment, buried it as he so often did lately. Between the estate and Elizabeth, the last thing he needed was another problem, and Jenny Baker clearly had plenty of her own, but the clinic needed a competent office manager who could double as a receptionist. That should be all he considered right now.

“Is working at the diner what you really want to do? I’m not saying there’s a thing wrong with being a waitress,” he explained, dead certain she was in need of help herself. “But wouldn’t you rather have a job that used your skills and paid more than minimum wage and tips?”

Jenny was okay with omission. A little less comfortable with evasion. But there was no way she could look him in the eye and lie.

“I didn’t think so,” he said, when her only response was to glance away.

“Look.” The faint breeze chased a leaf across the porch. “We need an office manager. I trust Bess’s judgment, so I’m more than willing to listen to her when it comes to decisions about staffing. But you’re hiding something,” he told her, wondering if fear had driven her here, hoping for her sake that it hadn’t. “Or running from it.”

He held up his hand, cutting her off when she started to protest. “I don’t like owing anyone, Jenny. And after what I put you through last night, I owe you. Something isn’t right here.” His glance swept her face, quietly searching. “If you’re in trouble, I might be able to help.”

Jenny had no idea why he didn’t care to be obligated to anyone. She didn’t get a chance to wonder about it, though. The thought that he wanted to help caught her as unprepared as the quick pang of need she felt to let him. She had never felt as alone as she had in the past month, as alone as she had last night curled up in the dark. Unfortunately, dealing with the mess she’d made of her life was something she would have to do on her own.

Suddenly tired herself, she sank to the top step and motioned for him to help himself to a stair. Boards groaned beneath his weight as he tugged at the knees of his khakis and sat down a yard away. With his big body taking up more than his half of the space, he planted his feet wide on the step below.

The yellow dots on his brown socks were tiny ducks. Had she not felt so miserable she would have smiled at that totally unexpected bit of whimsy. The kids in the pictures in his office would have to love a guy who wore something like that.