And Riley?
Her decision to move home had everything to do with her son, who had recently started asking tough questions about his father, painful questions Delia had been unable to answer. It was her deepest fear that Riley would be the one most injured by the choices she’d made—and was making now.
A persistent knot throbbed behind her left eye. She rubbed her temple to relieve the pounding pain. Between accounting and Zach, it would be almost impossible for her to avoid a headache, both literally and figuratively.
No matter how she felt, she had to press on. The only way to look to the future here in Serendipity was to settle the past. Do the right thing—whatever that was. For Delia, the lines between right and wrong had been cloudy and gray for years.
She tried to turn her mind back to the present, but she found it difficult to concentrate. Math had never been her strong suit. She retrieved the pencil she’d tucked behind her ear and wiggled the computer mouse so the screen would come back to life. The software she was using was supposed to help, but instead it managed to confuse her all the more.
She could do this, she reminded herself.
Financials were part and parcel of operating a small-town clinic. For now, she needed to conquer the numbers on her own. Although, later, she planned to hire a receptionist to take up much of the slack.
A steady, persistent knock startled Delia and she jerked up in surprise. No one should be here yet. The sign in the window still said that the clinic was closed for business, and she wasn’t expecting any deliveries this afternoon; but whoever was rapping on the rear door was certainly insistent.
Still a little hazy from the mental strain of bookkeeping and the emotional strain of moving home to Serendipity, she went to see who it was. An ambulance had backed up within feet of the clinic doors, the lights still flashing. She realized that she must have been completely lost in her thoughts, for she hadn’t heard a siren, although she supposed it was possible they hadn’t used one.
Nonetheless, her mind instantly shifted into doctor mode. Adrenaline pumped through her and erased all the fogginess from her brain. She didn’t give a thought to the fact that she was not officially open for business. Someone needed help. That’s what she was here for.
Her focus was completely on the patient as the EMT who’d been driving moved around to the back of the ambulance and swung the doors open. She recognized the first paramedic, Ben Atwood, and she knew the man strapped to the gurney—Drew “Spence” Spencer, the fifth-grade teacher at the elementary school in town. He was attached to an IV and his face was bunched up in pain as he cradled his left arm to his chest.
She held open the door and gestured them inside as the second EMT exited the ambulance and moved to the other side of the gurney to help guide it in.
“You know Drew Spencer.”
Delia’s breath caught as she flashed her gaze to the paramedic who was speaking to her.
Zach.
Her heart slammed to a halt and then lurched back into action. Zach’s voice had deepened some, but even after all these years, she recognized his distinctive honey-rich drawl immediately.
How could it be that Zach was an emergency medical technician? Not only that, but an unpaid volunteer, as the tri-county fire department couldn’t afford a full-time staff.
She was so surprised that a proverbial feather could have knocked her over. Zach had never cared for anyone but himself—he’d proven that more times than she cared to count.
She felt as if she were participating in a strobe-lit, slow-motion theater scene as she turned to lock eyes with her old flame. Surely the distance, the time, would make some sort of difference in her feelings for him, or at least mute them in some way.
Back then she’d been young. Irrational. Naive.
And totally in love.
She knew better now.
But the moment her gaze met the dreamy chocolate depths of his eyes, she realized nothing had changed. It was as if the years between them hadn’t passed at all, if her heart had anything to say about it.
One corner of his lips twitched upward in a lady-killer smile that had sent more than one young woman’s heart aflutter. He took a deep breath and exhaled and Delia realized she was breathing right in synch with him.
He was still incredibly good-looking in that rough-edged, bad boy way of his. Her gaze slid over him, remembering every detail of his lean, muscular six-foot frame.
His wind ruffled, shaggy brown hair was cut only marginally shorter than it had been when he was younger. The straight nose and strong jaw were the same—although his skin was more weathered and there were stress lines on his face. A haunted, pained expression had replaced the jaunty, carefree attitude he’d carried as a youth.
Without giving it a second thought, she took a couple of steps toward him.
“Zach,” she murmured.
He reacted as if she’d pushed him, jerking his shoulder away and stepping hastily backward out of her reach. A muscle twitched in the corner of his jaw as he broke his gaze away from her.
She experienced a stab of something suspiciously like rejection, but that only lasted for a second before panic set in.
Zach was here. And Riley was in the next room.
Her heart beat frantically as she considered her options, not that she had any. She could hardly bolt out of the room to go get Riley and then run away and hope Zach didn’t see them.
She didn’t know when—or even if—she was going to tell Zach he had a son; but definitely not this soon. Not in these circumstances. She could only hope Riley was too caught up in setting up the video system to bother checking out what was happening in the exam room.
Mindfully, and with all the willpower she possessed, she calmed her nerves and turned her attention to her patient, where it belonged.
Zach’s introduction of Spence had been a little off-script for what one would expect in a big hospital. But this was Serendipity, which was an extremely close-knit community. Everyone literally did know everyone. She’d gone to school with Spence, although he’d been several grades above her.
“He has second-degree burns on his left hand and forearm,” Zach continued crisply as he hung the IV bag on a hook on the wall and then helped his partner transfer Spence to the examining table. “His vitals are stable and we gave him morphine for the pain. Under normal circumstances we would have taken him to the nearest hospital, but I thought we should get his wound looked at as soon as possible, and now that you’re here in town…well, I hope you don’t mind that we brought him here to the clinic.”
“No, no, I don’t mind at all. I’m happy you thought of me.” Actually, she had all kinds of conflicting emotions about the idea that Zach had thought of her, but again she willfully tucked her feelings into the back of her heart to scrutinize later.
“My father went and called 9-1-1 after I asked him not to,” Spence explained in a raspy tone. “I really didn’t need an ambulance.”
“Sure you did,” Ben disagreed affably. He and Zach supported Spence as he transferred himself from the gurney to the examining table.
“You’re just too stubborn to admit it,” Zach added with a chuckle.
Even though Delia didn’t say so aloud, she agreed with Zach and Ben. She was glad old Frank Spencer had responded with an emergency call. Spence might not have thought he needed attention, but burns were nothing to play with.
“You’ve got this?” Ben asked Zach.
Zach’s lips flattened into a straight line, but after a moment he gave Ben a clipped nod.
Ben looked from Zach to Delia and back, his