Grace had worn those shoes to impress. Impress anyone from her past she might happen to run into in Spruce Lake. She wanted to show them that Grace Saunders—in spite of her crappy home life, her loser parents, her hand-me-down clothes—had made good. In fact, she’d made better than good. She was a successful Boston pediatrician with a long list of patients.
Her shoulders sagged. A list of patients she’d handed over in her haste to leave town. She might be financially secure and successful. But she was also completely burned out.
She took the shoe from Jack and examined the heel. It was shattered. She cursed.
“Thank you is the usual form of appreciation in this town,” he said.
She glanced up at him and said, “So, I heard you’d become a priest or something?”
* * *
HE NODDED. “OR SOMETHING. I’m now a contractor.” No point in telling her the whole story. She wouldn’t be in town long enough for it to matter.
“My contractor.”
He shook his head. “I’ve already told Mike I couldn’t do this job.”
“Even if I paid you double?”
Now he stuck both hands in the back pockets of his jeans. She had him there. Money always talked and he had plenty of community projects he could direct some extra funds to, but Adam and Carly were family. He owed them.
“Not even then.”
“I don’t remember you being such a hard case in high school, Jack,” she said, practically batting her eyelashes at him.
“High school was a long time ago, Gracie,” he said, since she seemed to be avoiding the fact that they’d dated for two years.
When Gracie had put her name forward as a peer tutor, Jack, struggling because of dyslexia, had signed up. They’d spent a lot of time together after school hours and eventually he’d built up the courage to ask her out. She’d said, “What took you so long? Where did you have in mind?”
Jack had been so flabbergasted, never believing she’d say yes, that he didn’t have anywhere in mind. Except to go parking at Inspiration Point, the local necking spot. Not that he’d ever necked with a girl. And he didn’t get to do it that night, either. But later...
“What do you mean, ‘Not even then’?” she demanded, bringing him back to the present.
Jack crossed his arms and widened his stance. “I’m due to start work on my brother’s house outside town tomorrow. I don’t break my promises.”
* * *
GRACE ADMIRED HIS candor. Then a need to prick the confidence he was projecting made her say, “Didn’t you break your promise to the church by leaving the priesthood?” Aunt Missy had written her about it.
His eyes narrowed. “My relationship with the church, and why I left, is none of your business.”
Dammit! She was intrigued and couldn’t let it go. “Did you fall in love with one of your parishioners?”
“And you just stepped way over the mark.” He gave her a tiny salute, saying, “Goodbye, Gracie,” turned on his heel and headed to his truck. “I’d say it’s been a pleasure. But it hasn’t.”
“It’s Grace!” she shouted to his back. “Not Gracie.” How dare he just walk away like that!
He shrugged and pulled open the door of his truck. “Whatever,” he said, and climbed in.
“Wait!” she cried, and hobbled toward his truck, one shoe on and one off.
She went to rest her arms on the passenger’s side window frame, then noticed it was dusty. She touched the frame with her fingertips and leaned in. “I’m sorry, Jack. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“Yes, you did.” He started the truck.
“You can’t leave me here like this! You promised to give me an estimate.”
“I promised Mike I’d give him an estimate. That was before I knew who his doctor client was. Goodbye, Grace.”
Chapter Two
Jack hated being played for a sucker. Mike knew exactly who he was dealing with, that was why he’d avoided using the doctor’s name. And Mike knew that Jack wouldn’t want to have anything to do with Grace. She’d left town, and him, without a backward glance after winning a full scholarship to a college in Boston faster than a snowflake melted in July. For too many years he’d tried to forget her. Now here she was, back in Spruce Lake and acting as if there’d been nothing between them.
And why shouldn’t she? She’d moved on, married, probably had kids. It cut deep that she hadn’t recognized him right away. He’d obviously spent too much time loving someone who didn’t feel the same way about him.
It hadn’t helped that during his time in the peace corps he’d been posted to remote places, often without internet access. They’d exchanged letters for a while, but Grace was always slow to respond, and when she did, it was all about college, the people she was hanging out with, how much she loved life in Boston.
Jack eventually realized she was letting him down as nicely as she could. He later heard she’d graduated from college early and gone to medical school. Then she’d married. Lost, Jack had entered the seminary, believing he could help others. He’d wasted too many years dreaming of Grace. Now that she was here in the flesh, he had no intention of letting her under his skin again.
He put Betsy in gear, ready to get out of there—make a symbolic break with Grace. He glanced at her manicured fingertips still resting on Betsy’s window frame, hoping she’d take the hint and move.
“Mike didn’t tell you it was me who wanted the estimate?” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
Her frown and confused tone had him cursing under his breath. He turned off the ignition and scratched the inside of his elbow.
“I wonder why not,” she said, a little too loudly now that Betsy’s engine was no longer thumping away.
Jack wasn’t going to tell her why not. Mike knew that if Jack had any idea who the client was, he’d have refused outright. He wanted to hit himself upside the head for not making the connection. Mike sure had suckered him. He’d suckered Grace, too. He scratched the back of his neck.
Suddenly Grace was climbing into the passenger seat. An erotic fantasy—involving him and Grace in Betsy’s cab—filled Jack’s mind as she ran her hand down the inside of his elbow. Then she leaned in close to look at the back of his neck before he could react and tell her to get the hell out of his truck.
“Whoa! What are you doing?” he demanded, pulling away from her, worried his fantasy might come true. Half-worried it might not.
“Taking a look at your arm. And your neck.”
Jack edged farther away from her, embarrassed about the rashes.
“What if we make a deal?” she said.
“About?”
“If I cure you of these rashes, will you do the renovation for me?”
Much as Jack wanted to be done with the rashes and all the scratching, he had a prior obligation to his brother. “Nope,” he said, and resisted the urge to scratch the back of his knee. He felt as if he was carrying a contagious disease and wondered why Grace was even sitting in the truck with him. Apparently she wasn’t afraid of catching it.
She jumped as Al stuck his head through the passenger window. Al had the stocky build of his Mexican father and the height of his English-born mother. But Jack doubted it was Al’s physique that had Grace scooting across the seat.