Rescue Me: A Bad Boy Military Romance (4 page)

I unlock the windows and try to open them to get some air in here. It might be nearing ninety-five degrees with eighty percent humidity, but this place needs some fresh country air. I shove my arms up under the windows and heave. I realize peeling paint has sealed the old wooden frames shut. They've swollen from humidity and lack of use. I sigh and go to prop the front door open, walking to the back past a small office kitchen and a single patient room. There's a back door here and I open it. Early summer air comes rushing through the dusty space and I breathe a sigh of relief.

I spend some time inventorying the rooms; I'm going to need to get a shipment of basic supplies quickly. The latex gloves have all melted together, and the swabs and gauze have all yellowed from age and lack of use. I manage to jimmy the screen door back onto the hinges and I close it, exiting through the back door with my bags. I'm grimy and tired and I've only been here half an hour. I walk through nearly waist-high grass and weeds to the little cottage that is going to be my home for the next four years.

There are flagstones hidden in the foliage, and I try to tap my heels as loudly as I can to scare away any rattlesnakes undoubtedly hiding in the grass. The list of things I’m going to have to get done just to make this place workable tallies up in my head. I have a miniscule budget and way too much to do. I hope that the house is in better condition.

As I approach the cottage, I realize that the cedar shutters have been freshly stained; the hunter green front porch painted. The limestone cottage is in much better condition than the clinic. The front door is even a shiny red. I hear the whisper of a conversation from the past in my head. 

"And I'll build you a little house."

"With a red front door?"

"Of course, Ella. Whatever you want. I'll build that for you."

My heart pounds. The red door is probably a coincidence. I see there's a brand-new welcome mat with an envelope resting upon it. Schoolteacher writing is scrawled across it with my name. I open it up and a key falls into my hand along with a small note.

Ella,

Welcome back to Buxwell. The town pitched in to get your house ready. We'll help out with the clinic, too, this weekend. We hope you find your accommodations welcoming. We sure are glad to have a doctor again and even more happy that it's you.

There'll be a proper homecoming in a few days or so, but until then, consider this your welcome home present.

Best,

Tanya Stockton

Mayor

I grin. So my old history teacher managed to make it into her dream position of town mayor. Good for her.

I take the key in my hand and insert it into the door. It creaks open. The cottage is only two rooms and a loft. There are simple furnishings, but it feels like home. Someone's even turned on the window unit AC and I rush over, sticking my face into the little ribbons that are tied to it.

They blow in my face and tickle me, but the air feels so good and fresh I don't care. After a few minutes, I take a look at the place. There's a simple but adequate kitchen, and I see my little fridge is filled with casseroles from top to toe. I climb up the tiny switchback staircase to the loft. There's a queen-sized mattress covered in a vintage, handmade quilt and fresh sheets. There's a small window up here, and someone's attached a little fan to one of the open shelves on the vertical walls under the dormers.

I hate to say it, but this place really does feel like home right now.

CHAPTER SEVEN

ELLA

I'm woken up the next morning by a knocking at my door. I reach for my phone to check the time. The sun isn't even out yet, so I know it's early. Five am early. Oh, boy. I pull myself out of bed and nearly trip over my open suitcase. I didn't have the energy last night to even begin to unpack. I shuffle around in the dark for a pair of pants to go under the big t-shirt I've slept in. I nearly fall down the unfamiliar staircase and make a note to at least put battery-operated lights on this thing until I can memorize the tread depths.

The knocking gets more insistent.

"Just a minute!" I yell, still groggy.

I pull open the front door to see a familiar, tawny face in front of me, her dark hair swept up into a sleek ponytail. She has her arms around the shoulders of a five-year-old boy who looks exactly like her. His lip is bleeding and he has a goose egg swelling on his forehead. 

"Hey, Ella," Alexa says to me sheepishly. "Sorry we meet like this after all this time."

I shake my head and bring her into a big hug. "Oh, it's good to see you," I say earnestly. Then my doctor mode kicks into high gear. "And who is this?" I crouch down to smile at the little boy, who has dried tear streaks on his chubby little cheeks.

"This is my son, Teddy," she says. "He fell off the top of his bunk bed about half an hour ago. I wanted to bring him to you and see if there's anything you can do?"

I look at the clinic bathed in moonlight behind her and remember the place is filthy. "Come in here," I say, walking into my living room and turning on all the lights. "Hang on a second." I run upstairs to grab my doctor's bag with basic provisions.

When I come back down, Teddy is perched on the sofa next to his mom. "Okay, Teddy, let's take a look, alright?" The little boy sits patiently with his hands crossed in his lap while I look at his pupils and his lip. "Did he knock any teeth out?" I ask Alexa.

She shakes her head. "No," she says.

"You had quite a fall, didn't you? I might have to stitch you up a little bit." I look around the living room and see a little teddy bear on the rocking chair in the corner. It's an odd decoration, but I guess someone thought it might be a homey addition to the living space. I'm grateful for it. I hand it to Teddy. "You see this guy? He was all stitched together, too. That's what I'm going to do with your lip, alright? It might pinch a little bit, but I just have to numb it first to make it nice and comfortable for you."

Teddy's lip quivers.

"You just squeeze this bear when you're scared, okay?" I say to him. He nods and I set to work. A few minutes and a few stitches later, we're all done. "Get him some children's ibuprofen and he'll be good to go," I say to Alexa, tearing my gloves off my hands and tossing them in the trashcan in my kitchen. "He doesn't have a concussion or anything. Just needs some rest and painkillers." I give Teddy a dose of liquid ibuprofen from a small bottle in my kit.

"Thank you so much," she says. "We'll just get out of your hair."

I yawn and stretch. "No, hang here a while! I've got videos on my phone he can watch while he curls up on the sofa. I think I have some hot chocolate in here if I remember correctly."

Alexa smiles. "That sounds wonderful." She gets Teddy situated on the couch with my phone and some cartoons playing. He's asleep in five minutes. Alexa hoists herself up onto the barstools. "You have any coffee?"

I open a few cabinets. "I think I do. So how have things been?"

She smiles. "Really good, actually. As good as it gets in Buxwell, anyway."

"How's Adam?" I ask her, thinking of her handsome husband.

"Deployed right now actually," she says with a grimace. "He's not in the Middle East, though. Just on the East Coast doing some training. He might get called up at any moment."

I pull out some instant coffee and set to work. "That still sucks, though. Must be hard being alone at home with-" I nod at Teddy.

She smiles. "Yeah, it's not ideal. But I'm happy I can afford to be at home with him on Teddy's salary. We couldn't if it weren't for my parents leaving me their house." She pauses.

"What?" I ask her.

"Have you...been into town yet? Talked to anyone?" she asks.

I shake my head. "No, just got into town in the middle of the afternoon and basically went straight to bed. Why?"

She shrugs. "No reason. People are excited to see you, that's all. And I wanted to see who had the honor of getting to see you first."

My mind flashes to
him
. On the street yesterday, lifting lumber out of a truck, his muscles rippling. I get goosebumps. "Is there something you want to tell me, Alexa?"

She laughs and changes the subject. "California must have been nice. I guess you got the note from Tanya about the party welcoming you back home?"

I nod. "Yeah, I did. Not going to say that I'm super excited about that or anything, but I guess it is what it is."

"Any excuse to dust off the Masonic hall and have a barbecue, basically," Alexa says. "When do you think the clinic will be set up?"

I sigh and pour boiling water into two different mugs where I've mixed the coffee crystals and cold water. "Might be another two weeks at least. I need to order supplies and the place is in need of a deep clean."

"I've got a handyman who might be good," she says. I think for a second I see a gleam of mischief in her eyes, but the look passes and I forget about it. She reaches into her purse and writes down a phone number. "He's pretty good. He helped get this place set up, actually."

"He did a great job, if this place looked anything like the clinic looks right now," I add.

She smiles. "This place looked even worse, if you can believe that." She sips her coffee. "I'm so glad you're back, Ella. We all missed you and I never thought you'd make it back here."

I bite back the truth: that there's no way I'd be here if I didn't have over a quarter million of medical student debt to pay back. "I'm happy to see you," I say, which is the truth.

The rest of it can be left unsaid for now. There's no reason for me to disappoint her with my reality: that being here is more painful than I can possibly articulate.

The past just won't leave me alone.

CHAPTER EIGHT

ELLA

ELEVEN YEARS AGO

I slide my lunch tray to the side, reaching into my bag and pulling out my tattered copy of
Pride and Prejudice.
I flip open to the middle and stick my nose into the pages. I’m getting lost in the words when I feel someone sit next to me. “Not now, Alexa,” I say absently, flipping the page.

“It’s a good book,” says a voice several octaves lower than Alexa’s.

I jump a little in my seat as I realize it’s Luke sitting next to me with a smile on his face. His dimples are giving me a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach. “You’ve read it?”

He laughs. “Course I have. Hasn’t everybody?” He leans closer to me and I realize he’s wearing cologne. I suddenly feel a little shaky. “You were really into it. You missed the lunch lady chasing after Dean for swiping a pudding pack.”

I look around me at the lunch room. A lot of people have cleared out already. I look up at the clock. “Oh, I lost track of time,” I say, piling food wrappers onto my lunch tray and gathering up my book and bag.

“It’s adorable,” he says with a twang.

“What’s adorable?” I stand up and slip my backpack over my shoulder.

“When you’re concentrating. You twirl your hair and it’s like you don’t even realize you’re doing it.”

He’s following me, a few close steps behind me. It’s like I can feel the heat radiating off of his body from a few feet away. I dump my trash and turn around, feeling bold. “Are you stalking me or something?”

Luke laughs and shoves his hands into the pockets of his worn jeans. He’s wearing cowboy boots today. I wish that didn’t have an effect on me, but I’m a Texas girl at heart and it does.

“Not really. I just came over to give you something,” he says with a smile. He reaches into his duffel bag and pulls out a black, crinkling plastic bag. “Gummy worms. The sour kind. I heard you like them.”

I take the bag from him and our fingertips brush. I feel that same jolt of electricity from yesterday ride through my fingers. “Who told you that?”

“Doesn’t matter where I get my intel from. You like them or not?” he asks me with a challenging grin.

I nod. “Yeah. They’re my favorite.” I’m beginning to blush again so I push past him. Suddenly, I’m acutely aware of how much this room smells like ketchup. I walk into the hallway into the sea of bodies.

“You like running away from me, don’t you?” Luke asks. He’s caught up with me. Again.

“I just need to get to class,” I reply.

He skips a few steps ahead and turns around, walking backwards through the crowd like it’s the easiest thing in the world. But of course, the sea parts for Luke Davis. Why wouldn’t it? “Go out with me,” he says.

The chatter of people around us as we walk is so cacophonous I can barely make out the words. “Sorry? It sounds like you just asked me out,” I reply, biting my lip and forging onward. He’s still walking in reverse.

“That’s exactly what I did,” he replies.

“No,” I say quickly.

He cocks his head to the side. “No? Okay. I’ll ask louder because you must not have heard me after all. Go out with me,” he says loudly. A few people turn around at their lockers and stare. I hear the whispers start, and soon the hush spreads through the crowd.

Luke stops walking and I nearly run into him. “I’ll ask again if I need to. I’ll yell it if I have to.”

“No!” I yell, not meaning to say it so loudly. I lower my voice and duck my head. My face must be the color of an eggplant right now. “I mean, no. Don’t repeat it. Fine, I’ll go out with you.”

Luke’s face lights up at this. “Seven. Tomorrow. I’ll pick you up.” He turns around and pushes through the still-frozen crowd.

“But you don’t know where I live!” I yell after him. I don’t think I’ve ever been as loud at school as I am today. Normally I’m the bookworm in the corner trying not to make eye contact with anyone.

He turns around again and yells back. “Of course I do! You’re Ella Hanover!”

I catch myself smiling but it’s cut short by a glimpse of Amy Waters sulking by the lockers. I duck my head and book it towards the library.