Secrets Gone South (Crimson Romance) (3 page)

And he smiled again. “Thank you,” he said softly.

“Do you have any allergies, Will?”

“Just ragweed,” he said flippantly.

“We won’t use any of that today.” She turned to her nurse. “Kelly, will you get me a suture kit and 50 cc of Novocain?” Kelly frowned slightly. She’d been doing this long enough to know that was probably an excessive amount of anesthetic but Arabelle was determined not to hurt him.

“Brantley Kincaid told me you were living here now,” Will said as Arabelle cleaned his wound, “but I’m surprised to find you here. I thought you were a surgeon.”

“I am,” she said. “I was. I decided I wanted to try family medicine and when the older Dr. Vines retired, I was glad for the opportunity.” The last thing she intended to bring up was her reasons for the switch. She forced a little laugh. “The good news for you is I’m
really
good at sutures. If all goes well, you should have almost no scarring.”

“I’m sorry about your cousin,” Will said softly, with real sorrow. “Your family has had its share of grief.”

That was the truth. “Thank you,” she said.

She wished she could think of something else to say, something meaningless and distracting. The last two times she’d seen him, he’d asked her out and she needed to head that off. The second time, at Brantley and Lucy Kincaid’s wedding, she had almost said yes and she
had
danced with him—three times. But that was before Sheridan and David were killed. Going out with him before would have been a bad idea; now, it was absolutely out of the question.

“It’s clear you’ve made some sacrifices to do right by that little boy, Arabelle,” he said. “Not everyone would do that. It’s admirable.”

Oh, God. Oh, no. The one thing she could not endure was this sweet man—possibly the sweetest human being she had ever known—heaping sweet praise on her for “sacrificing” for Avery. If he only knew—but he never would. She was in too deep. She could not discuss this, even to thank him for the unwarranted praise.

“Am I hurting you? Or are you just being brave and all macho?” She dabbed more Betadine on his cut.

He laughed a little and pushed his hair back. “I don’t think anyone could accuse me of being macho.”

As if.
He was built like a lumberjack, with broad shoulders, strong arms, and narrow waist. She guessed there was a reason for that. Hadn’t he told her on that night two and a half years ago that he liked to harvest his own wood when he could? Today, he even wore the clothes to fit that image—plaid flannel shirt in shades of green worn over a brown thermal shirt, tucked into soft worn jeans.

Kelly entered the room and parked a portable instrument stand with a hypodermic needle and the suture kit within Arabelle’s reach.

“Do you need me, Dr. Avery?” she asked as she moved a small overbed table across Will’s lap. “Cindy and Dr. Vines need an extra hand.”

“Go ahead. Will’s all brave. He doesn’t need to be held down.” Good. That was banter like she would use to relax any patient—though if Will was any more relaxed, he’d be comatose.

Arabelle settled Will’s hand on the table between them and picked up the hypodermic needle. “I’m just going to deaden you up a little.” She noted that he watched as she inserted the needle at various points around the cut. “A fairy, huh? That’s what you were carving?”

“Not exactly. I’m making a black cherry music stand. The client wanted it to depict an enchanted garden and a fool, so the base is a court jester and the desk is going to be all open work with trees, vines, flowers, fairies, and such.”

“That’s different,” she said, disposing of the syringe.

“The client is having it made for his wife. She’s a musician and those things have significance for her. He wanted mahogany but I persuaded him that the cherry was better for this project. It’s a very feminine wood.”

Arabelle stopped. “Not Janelle Prater? Who just had that big hit song ‘Enchanted Garden of a Fool’?”

Will shrugged. “They’re nice people and it’s a challenging project.” He looked pointedly at his hand. “Apparently more challenging than I expected.”

“So did you chop down the tree?” She reached for the suture kit and checked the seal to make sure Kelly had not brought her an unsterilized one by mistake.

“No. But I did find just the right wood in Pennsylvania.”

She stopped. “Pennsylvania? You went all the way to Pennsylvania for
wood?
”

“You do what’s necessary to do a job right.” There was no malice or condescension in his voice. There never was. Still, she felt a little ashamed.

“I’m sure the music stand is beautiful. Everything you make is a work of art.” As was his fabulous log house in the woods and the furniture he’d filled it with. But she wasn’t bringing that up, didn’t want to remind him of the night when she’d seen his home. In fact, she didn’t want to talk anymore. She rose and raised the back of the examination table and adjusted the headrest. “Okay, Will, I’m going to stitch you up now. I want you to lean back, relax, and close your eyes. You won’t feel a thing.”

If he knew all that eye closing and leaning back wasn’t necessary, except to end conversation between them, he didn’t show it. He just gave her that sweet, calm smile and did as she asked.

After he had closed his eyes, she took just a moment. She would probably never get another chance to look at him unguarded. Never had she known a man so entirely comfortable in his own skin. And what skin it was—smooth, the color of rich honey, with a healthy ruddiness across his high cheekbones. She would have liked to touch his face.

Instead, she took his injured hand in her own gloved one again and reached for her tools. “Tell me if you feel anything. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I trust you,” he said.

Ha!

• • •

Will had not expected Arabelle to be the one to clean him up and put him back together after his stupid accident—the foolish accident of an amateur, Ellery Kane would have called it. Ellery had taught him everything he knew about woodworking, including how to avoid injuring himself. Not that it had done any good today.

Though it had almost been worth it to see Arabelle in her element, so self-assured and capable, yet the absolute last word on refinement. Even in those doctor’s scrubs, she was beautiful and that color of green didn’t do anybody any favors. If he’d been describing Arabelle, he might have been forced to say she was of average height and weight with medium length dark curly hair, but there was nothing average or medium about her. Somewhere along the way she had found the grace of fine art that came out in her smile and the bluest eyes he’d ever seen.

My God, those eyes. He didn’t even have a word for them and he was pretty good at describing color. Almost aqua marine, but with a tad less green. They were close to the periwinkle blue in the sixty-four count Crayola box, but more jewel toned. Not that he’d had that box of crayons growing up, or even the Crayola brand. That had cost too much. After he’d sold a hope chest to a rich man from Memphis who thought nothing was too good for his daughter, Will had bought himself that very box of crayons. He still had them.

What was wrong with him, running all this through his head? He hadn’t even taken one of the pain pills Arabelle had prescribed. She said to take them if he needed them but under no circumstances to neglect the antibiotics. Also, he was to call her if he ran a fever.

Finally—he had permission to call her. But only under that condition. He knew better than to ask her out again. She wanted no part of it, probably regretted what had happened between them that one night. But maybe they could be friends. He’d be all right with that. Not friends with benefits either, even if she was willing, which he could not imagine. He would never do that again. He’d learned that lesson with Aspen Snow, who had sworn she was just in it for the fun. She hadn’t meant it and though he had always been honest, he’d felt bad for hurting her, until he found out she’d been telling people they were engaged. Frankly, he’d been relieved when she left town.

Turning on the road past the Avery family farmhouse—though, in truth it was more mansion than farmhouse—always gave Will a sense of peace. It meant he was away from town and almost home.

He’d grown up in town in a cramped house, on a sad street in Mill Town, to parents who had no energy for anything except misery. Mill Town was not an official place, but what everyone called the blocks of houses where most of the cotton mill workers lived—which was where Will’s father had worked when he wasn’t drunk. In his alcoholism, Royce Garrett had been more self-deprecating than abusive, but the situation itself was abusive enough. His mother was just a shadow. After his father drank himself to death when Will was sixteen, they lived on a small pension from the mill, the ironing his mother took in, and what Will made at his various part time jobs. By the time she died when he was nineteen, he’d graduated from Merritt High and was working full time stocking and sacking groceries at Big Starr Market, and part time mowing grass at the country club and cleaning up graves at the Merritt cemetery.

That his mother had owned fifty acres of land in the woods adjoining the Avery’s farm came as more of a shock to Will than her death. She had inherited the land from a distant aunt ten years before. Why she had never mentioned it, he could only speculate. Maybe she was afraid that if she told, her husband would have made her sell it and poured the profits down his throat. Maybe she’d just been too tired to fool with it. Or maybe the money that Senator Avery had paid her for the hunting rights to a ten-acre strip was the only security she had.

Will had never regretted selling that ten acres with the pond to Arabelle’s father, even after his view on killing animals for food changed. It was, after all, only a personal conviction.

The senator had waited a decent amount of time after the funeral before approaching Will. It seemed he’d offered to buy the land from Will’s mother more than once, but she had liked the idea of the yearly income. The senator liked to invite friends and political types to hunt, but he didn’t like for his wife and children’s home to be invaded. He wanted to build a hunting lodge on the property and he couldn’t do that unless he owned it.

The offer had been fair—more than fair, but not so generous that Will felt insulted because of his poverty. Years later, after he had learned his craft and made some money, Will had asked Arabelle’s father why he had been so generous.

“You could have easily gotten it for a song,” Will had said. “I didn’t know any better.”

The man had nodded. “If you’d been an adult on an even playing field, I would have gotten it for what I could. That’s just business. But it was worth it to me for my purposes. And I think there is a special place in hell for people who swindle kids in desperate circumstances. Nothing’s worth that.”

Will had always liked the man and he respected that answer. The money had allowed him to get out of Mill Town where almost all of his money went to rent.

Now that he had land, he promised himself he would never pay another cent of rent on anything. People had thought he was crazy when he bought a used travel trailer and a generator and cleared enough land to set himself up a little home.

It was the best thing he’d ever done. He found peace in the woods—serenity. It was as if he had always belonged there. He didn’t respect the woods yet; that would come later. He’d always been able to draw and had done well in art class, though he’d never thought much about it. Poor people didn’t have time for artistic endeavors. But one summer night, after cutting grass and cleaning out flower beds at the Merritt Country Club all day, he’d gone home, built a campfire, and picked up a piece of wood. With his pocketknife, he’d coaxed a little duck out of it. It was crude, but it gave him satisfaction. So he did another and it was better. Then he moved on to other birds and animals. By the time the Merritt Bobcat Booster Fair rolled around the next spring, he had a whole box full of stuff, some of it not bad.

He had approached Shine Sipes about sharing a booth. Shine owned the barbershop but, for a hobby, made pine birdhouses, magazine racks, and bookends to sell at the Booster Fair every year. Turns out, Shine’s grandchildren were coming for the weekend and he’d told Will that he would pay for the booth and Will could keep all the money from his own wares if Will would mind the booth the whole weekend for both of them.

That weekend, Will got a break, when he wasn’t looking for a break, when he didn’t know there were any breaks to be had. Ellery Kane, who turned out to be a master craftsman from North Carolina, saw Will’s little carvings and offered him an apprenticeship in his shop. Ellery, who was half Cherokee, maintained that Will must have Native American blood or he wouldn’t have such talent. Will had no idea and he doubted if his parents had known either. People who were always worried about food for the table and—in his father’s case—whiskey in the cupboard didn’t spend a lot of time worrying about heritage and culture.

But Will
did
spend a lot of time learning to please Ellery, no mean feat. Ellery taught him to respect the wood, to feel its life force. He learned right away that you didn’t compel the wood to be something it didn’t want to be. The object that the wood would become was already there; it just had to be drawn out.

In return for what he learned, Will spent long hours in Ellery’s workshop helping to create the fine furniture that had earned Ellery an impeccable reputation and not a small amount of money. Though Ellery paid Will barely enough to live on, it was the best bargain of Will’s life.

After three years, Ellery pronounced Will his equal in some areas and his superior in hand carving. He promised Will would have all the work he could do, because Ellery would send him referrals.

Before he left, Will had said to Ellery, “Sometimes I wonder why you did all this for me.”

Ellery nodded. “And other times?”

“You think it was your duty. You think, when you recognize talent, it would be wrong not to cultivate it.”

Ellery nodded. “I’ve trained others. Only two. You’re my best accomplishment.”