A Season of You Read online

  “Why do you bring Stewie to work?” he asked, not wanting to think about his oh-so-dumb-crush. He’d spent six years trying not to think about it, so he had plenty of practice. And right now there were more important things to focus on. Like getting them both safely into town through the crazy weather.

  “Mostly because I can,” Mina said. She shifted the position of the gauze on her head with a wince. Will risked a glance. The white cotton was stained red.

  “Keep that where it is,” he ordered. Then, when Mina winced again as she pressed the gauze back in place, “I guess if I had a workplace where I could bring my dog, I would too.”

  “Do you have a dog?” Mina said.

  “No. Maybe one day. Not much room in my apartment for a pooch, and I work some crazy hours.” Starting up a distillery was a lot of work. Not to mention that he and his brother Stefan had opened a bar on the property as well to bring in some cash while their first batch of whiskey aged. Bars, it turned out, were a lot of work too. Stefan handled the kitchen and Will tended bar, and they had a couple of waitresses and waiters who helped out on weekends or during summer but it was still a lot of work. They opened at five and didn’t close until midnight unless things were dead. Add on prep time and clean-up and the work of the distillery and all the admin that went with running two businesses, and his work week tended to be long.

  “Dogs are good,” Mina said, sounding a little out of it.

  “Yes,” he agreed. “How’s your head feeling?” Dumb question, but he needed to keep her talking.

  Mina grimaced. “Like I whacked it on something. And my shoulder hurts.”

  “Do you remember what happened?”

  “Not really. I was changing the tire. I guess I slipped. Then you were there.” She turned her head slowly. “Why were you there?”

  “We can see that strip of road from the office upstairs at the bar,” he said. “I saw the car stop. Was going to call Nicolai to go check it out if it didn’t start again in a few minutes. Then I saw your flashlight go flying and thought I’d better come down and see if whoever it was needed help.” He gestured at the rain beating down on the windshield, coming almost faster than the wipers could deal with it. “Not a good night to be caught outdoors.”

  “That was nice of you,” she said.

  “That’s me. Will Fraser, doer of good deeds.” He tried to relax his hands where they were gripping the wheel too tightly.

  They were nearly at the outer edge of Cloud Bay now. The town wasn’t very large. The cluster of stores and restaurants and businesses in its center took up a couple of streets, and then there was a mix of houses and the odd small apartment building and a few other businesses that needed more space than the main streets could offer. The clinic—which wasn’t big enough to be called a hospital but did offer an ER service—was a couple of streets behind Main Street.

  As they pulled up in front of the clinic, the door opened and Callie Walsh, one of the two doctors in town, appeared holding a large umbrella. She dashed across to his car and knocked on the window. He wound it down.

  “Can she walk? Do we need a wheelchair?” Callie asked.

  “I can carry her,” Will said. “Faster than a chair.”

  “I can walk,” Mina muttered.

  “You don’t know that,” Will retorted. “Now stay still and let the doc take care of you.”

  chapter two

  Mina had to admit that she’d probably been wrong about the walking thing. Her head swam when Will lifted her carefully out of the car, and she had to close her eyes and swallow hard for a minute, not entirely sure she wasn’t going to barf all over him. Which would be kind of mortifying.

  To her relief, she didn’t. “What about Stewie?” she asked as they started for the clinic.

  “Mina, we can’t have a dog in the clinic,” Callie said. She was about five foot three, topped with red hair that curled wildly and bright blue eyes. Hardly a daunting figure, but her tone made it clear there’d be no arguments. “He’s not a guide dog or a service dog, so the rules say no.”

  The rules were dumb. “But—”

  “He’ll be fine in Will’s car for a little while. Let me take a look at you. Then we can figure out if we need a longer-term solution for Stewie tonight.”

  Her head really hurt too much to keep arguing. The clinic was very bright, and she closed her eyes against the glare and the stabs of pain it caused.

  “Put her down here,” Callie said. Will lowered her onto something soft. She opened her eyes again. She was lying on a hospital bed. Or an examination table. Something that looked like it was straight out of Grey’s Anatomy. The back of it was raised, so she didn’t have to lie flat. The room was warmer than Will’s car but she still felt cold. Mostly, she realized, because her clothes were wet, the soggy fabric chilling her skin where the rain had soaked her jeans and trickled under the neck of her jacket.

  “I’m pretty wet,” Mina said.

  “We can cope with that,” Callie said. “Water is hardly the worst thing that gets on the sheets around here. We’ll warm you up but I need to check you out first.” She came around to Mina’s side, studying her for a minute. Then she started poking and prodding her with ruthless efficiency. Limbs and neck checked. Pulse and blood pressure taken, questions asked about who was president and what day it was. In between questions, Mina tried to focus on Will to take her mind off the pain. He stood near the bed, worry clear in his hazel eyes.

  Nice eyes, she thought vaguely. Why hadn’t she noticed his eyes before? But before she had time to think anything more about Will, Callie started to peel the gauze away from the wound on Mina’s head, which brought all her attention back to the present with an “Ouch!” of protest.

  In reply, Callie made an unintelligible little noise. From which Mina guessed it didn’t look pretty.

  “Okay. Good.” Callie found another dressing and pressed it into place gently. “I’ll take care of that in a minute. First, I want to do a CT.”

  “You can do that here?” Will asked.

  Callie nodded. “We’re pretty well set up. Thanks to the Harpers.” She nodded at Mina with a smile. Mina fought the urge to close her eyes. People on the island tended to love her dad. He’d been generous to the community, no one could deny that. But that didn’t mean he’d always been a great guy. Or a great Dad. But since he’d died, there were a lot of people who seemed to be forgetting the not-so-good parts. It was weird to see someone you had known and loved and despaired of sometimes being turned into a myth.

  “Mina’s dad made some substantial donations over the years, so we have good toys to play with. Enough so that we can start figuring out what’s wrong while the choppers are getting here from the mainland if they’re needed. We don’t have an MRI—we’d need a bigger building for that—but X-ray and CT we can do.”

  “I’ve only come here for checkups or shots,” Will said.

  “And let’s hope it stays that way,” Callie said. “I like it when my patients have nice normal medical issues.” She smiled again at Mina. “Not that you have something abnormal but I just want to make sure. Now, before I get you into a gown and take you next door for the scan, does anywhere else hurt? Other than your head?”

  “My shoulder,” Mina said. She’d been focused mostly on her headache but the shoulder was making a play to be noticed as well, aching and throbbing in concert with her head.

  Callie frowned. “Right or left?”

  “Right.”

  “She was lying on that side when I found her,” Will said.

  “Okay.” Callie pressed her fingers gently into Mina’s shoulder. The resultant jab of pain made her gasp, but Callie just frowned and continued feeling her way around the joint. Finally she stepped back. “It’s not dislocated. Hopefully just bruised. We’ll check it out in the CT scan too. Anything else?”

  “No.”

  “All right. So let’s get you out of these wet clothes. Will can wait in the waiting room. There’s a coffee machine there
, Will. And a vending machine. Maybe you can take Stewie a cookie.”

  Will looked like he wanted to argue, but Callie gave him another of her “I’m the doctor here and I make the rules” looks and he just nodded.

  “I’ll call the S and R station for you,” Will said. “Anyone else you want me to call?”

  Mina shook her head. “No.”

  “No? What about Faith?”

  “She and Caleb are off-island. Spending a week in New York.” Which was a good thing. Faith had been glowingly happy in the six months since she’d met Caleb White, happier than Mina could remember seeing her since … well, probably since before Grey died.

  That earned her a frown from both Callie and Will.

  “Well then, how about Lou?” Will asked.

  Did he know that Lou wasn’t actually her mom? He’d only moved to the island a few years ago. After Grey had died. She didn’t think he could have ever met Emmy. But Lou had raised her, and that was what counted. She was the one that Mina would have turned to if not for one small problem. “She’s gone too. Danny’s in LA and she went to see him play. I think she gets back tomorrow.”

  She couldn’t quite remember through the headache. She resisted the urge to rub her forehead. She’d already discovered that didn’t help. “It’s fine. It’s just a bump on the head. Tell the station. And Stewie might need to—you know.” She bit her lip. It was weird to be asking Will, who she didn’t really know, to take care of her dog.

  Will nodded, suddenly looking determined to get out of there. She couldn’t blame him. His Mustang was gorgeous. She knew from Faith he’d restored it himself. If she loved a car like Will loved that Mustang, then she wouldn’t be keen on the idea of a dog peeing in it either.

  As Will left, she forced herself to relax, carefully lowering her head back against the pillow. Callie produced a towel and then a gown and helped Mina change, which was a slow process. But at least a hospital gown—as hideous as they were—was easy to slide up her arm so her shoulder didn’t have to move too far. Between it and the headache, she was starting to look forward to the part where she got the good drugs. Was she allowed to have the good stuff? She couldn’t remember what you were supposed to do for a concussion. Given that she had regular first aid training as part of her search and rescue work, that couldn’t be a good sign. But trying to remember just made her head feel worse, so she gave up and let Callie ease her back onto the bed and pile warmed blankets over her.

  Whoever had invented blanket warmers should be given a medal. The warmth surrounded her, driving the chill from her bones. If it hadn’t been for the aching head and the throbbing shoulder, she might have even relaxed.

  “I’ll be back in one sec,” Callie said. “Let me get Rafe to help me wheel you next door.”

  Mina wasn’t exactly in a hurry to go anywhere. Not while the evil little gremlins who were currently tap dancing in spiked boots over her head were still there. Before long Callie came back with Rafe, one of the nurses who worked at the clinic.

  “Hey, Mina,” he said, brown eyes smiling as the two of them started to wheel her out of the room. He was about a foot taller than Callie, all long brown limbs. “How’s that big dog of yours?”

  “He’s good.” Rafe and his boyfriend, Kent, had acquired their cocker spaniel puppy at the same time Mina had bought Stewie. They’d done puppy training together. Though Rafe’s Loki tended to live up to his namesake and be the naughtiest dog in the class, he and Stewie had always been friendly. They were always happy to see each other when their paths crossed on one of the dog beaches.

  They reached their destination and Rafe and Callie helped her onto the narrow table of the CT machine. It jolted a little. She winced.

  Rafe leaned over her, adjusting the position of her head. His smile was sympathetic. “Just a little longer. Then Callie will be able to give you something for the pain.”

  Painkillers. That sounded like an awesome plan. Best damn plan she’d heard anyone mention all day in fact.

  * * *

  Will blew on his hands as he walked back through the clinic doors into the waiting room. It had been nearly an hour since Callie had shooed him out and he’d been alternating sitting out in his car with Stewie and hanging around the waiting room watching ESPN, which was about the only thing he could find on the TV that was bearable at this time of night. Though replays of old baseball games were not exactly a distraction from the fact that he was tired and nervous about how badly Mina was hurt. Which was kind of stupid.

  She wasn’t any business of his.

  At least, not after tonight.

  Despite Will’s best efforts to keep him company, Stewie had managed to chew up the back seat of the Mustang pretty well in the stretches of time he’d been left alone. He apparently didn’t like being kept away from Mina either.

  Will couldn’t blame him for that. And he was too tired to be too annoyed about the seat. It could be replaced. He just hoped Stewie hadn’t actually swallowed much of it—though from what he could see the leather was mostly shredded rather than eaten—because he didn’t want to have to find a vet in the middle of the night if the damn fool dog had made himself sick.

  He tried to stop himself yawning as he sat back in the chair with the best view of the TV. The coffee machine’s little red light winked temptation at him. He resisted. He’d already had one cup. If he had another he’d probably be awake all night.

  Before he could decide if death by caffeine was the way to go, Callie came through the door. His heart started to pound. “Is Mina okay?”

  Callie nodded, her smile reassuring, though that didn’t calm his pulse down any. “Yes. You can come on back.”

  He followed her as she turned on her heel and headed back the way she’d come.

  “She had a mild concussion,” Callie said. They reached the door of the examination room and he held it open for her. “Which is what I want to talk to you about.”

  Mina was lying on the same bed, covered by pale green cotton hospital blankets. Her head wound had been properly dressed and her face cleaned up. She turned her head slowly as they came into the room. She still looked too pale but not as bad as she had when they’d arrived, her short dark hair not quite so stark a contrast to her skin.

  “Okay,” Callie said. “So here’s the deal. Like I said, Mina has a mild concussion. There’s no fracture in her shoulder and no tear that I can see—we send the scans off-island to get a specialist to look at them too for confirmation—so I’m chalking that one up as bad bruising or a sprain for now. She could go home, but she needs someone to be with her. I need someone to check on her during the night a couple of times. If not, I’ll keep her here overnight.”

  “I want to go home,” Mina said.

  “I could stay with her, “Will said without thinking.

  Mina frowned. “No, I’ve caused you enough trouble. Ivy or Leah will come if we call them.”

  “Why wake them up?” he said. “I’m already here and in the time it would take one of them to get organized and come get you, I could already have you—and Stewie—back home.”

  “But—”

  “I know you and I don’t know each other very well, but you know that Faith and Caleb hang out with me, right? I’m sure they’d vouch I’m not a serial killer. And unlike, Leah or Ivy, I can catch up on my sleep during the day because I don’t have to open the bar until five. You said Lou would be back tomorrow—” He checked his watch. It was nearly one thirty. “Well, later today. She can take over then.”

  Callie was nodding encouragingly. “That sounds like a sensible plan to me,” she said. “You’ll sleep better if you’re home and not worrying about Stewie. I’m just a phone call away.”

  “I—”

  “Just give in,” Will said. “There’s no reason to refuse.” He watched her for a minute, wondering if she really had something against him or whether she was just trying to be polite. He didn’t know. But either way, he wanted to help. Hell, if he was honest, he was happ
y just to spend some time with her. Which was lame and pathetic. He knew that. But it didn’t change the fact she needed help and he was happy to give it, just as he would for anyone who wound up in her position.

  “Okay,” Mina said. She closed her eyes briefly. “Thank you.”

  * * *

  “Great,” Callie said, smiling at Will. She looked down at the chart in her hand briefly. “She’s had some Tylenol. Next dose in three hours or so. Can’t give her anything stronger than that for the first few days until we’re sure there’s nothing worse going on with her head. So her shoulder might still hurt. She can ice it, if that helps. Ice for the first few days then heat. She needs to come back in tomorrow afternoon so I can check on her. She should rest, keep things quiet for a few days. No exercise. No lifting anything heavy.” She reeled off a list of other things Mina could or couldn’t do. “I’ll print you the list so Lou knows too.”

  Will nodded. “Stefan had a concussion a few years ago. He came off his surfboard and it whacked him on the head. So I know the drill.”

  Mina was quiet all the way home, other than answering the questions he asked her at intervals to make sure she was staying awake. She spent most of the journey with her eyes closed. Which was fine. If she kept them closed, she hopefully wouldn’t notice the holes that Stewie had chewed in his back seat. Holes he had no intention of bringing to her attention.

  “Not long now,” he said and got a nod in reply.

  He knew his way to her house, given it was on the same property as her sister’s. He’d jogged past the lighthouse and the cottage that hugged its base often enough when he did beach runs. Technically the beach around the Harper’s place, and the properties owned by the other members of Blacklight that sat to either side of it, were private, but none of them seemed to care too much about that rule when it came to locals. As long as they didn’t try to do anything too crazy. Apparently his infrequent runs along the beach didn’t count as crazy.