Of course, his mother would choose that moment to walk into the room to the sound of his friends and father hooting with laughter.
“Son, if that gesture was the one I thought it was, I’d be disappointed.”
“Newman made me do it, Mom.”
Buster snickered.
“I brought pizza, but you have to share.” Dr. McBride dropped the boxes in the middle of the table, right on top of the cards, but no one complained too loudly.
“I love you, Nancy.” Jake rolled his eyes as Tex leapt out of his seat so his mother could have it. She had that effect on people. Beautiful at fifty years old, the woman would turn any man’s head, young or old, but even after thirty years, she had eyes for only one man, and he was pulling her down onto his lap.
“Find your own woman, son. This one’s mine.”
Dutifully, Jake made a gagging sound as they kissed, as was expected of him.
The pizza was good, probably due to the beer, as was the company. When he stumbled upstairs into his old bedroom a few hours later, Jake wondered what Branna was doing. Had she left behind friends in Washington who she’d collected over the years? Did they used to meet in bars to talk or go to movies like he did with his friends? The friends who had his back, and never turned away from him, even when he’d returned to Howling a different man from the one who’d left.
He doubted the existence of Branna’s friends; in fact, he doubted the serious, beautiful woman let anyone close, because she sure as hell hadn’t in high school. Closing his eyes, he let the buzz of beer lure him to sleep and decided that tomorrow he would see Branna O’Donnell again, just to make sure she was settling in.
After the crazinessof her arrival in Howling, the next few weeks were relatively peaceful for Branna. She settled in, putting her things about Georgie’s house and turning it into Branna and Georgie’s house. She found memories everywhere, from photo albums to stories that Branna had written and Georgie had kept. Tears of sadness and joy crept up on her, so that at the end of each day, she fell into bed exhausted. Since her mother’s death, she’d managed to avoid crying as best she could, but here, in this house that she’d once thought of as her haven, it was unavoidable; everywhere she looked she found her friend.
She cooked in the kitchen where she’d learned to bake, using the recipes Georgie had collected over the years. She slept in the room she’d stayed in the few times when her father had allowed her to sleep over. It was both harrowing and healing to Branna to be here, to look back into the past with its painful memories in order to find a way forward into the future.
Mikey and Belle had helped her to move a few things out to the shed, which allowed her to fit her writing desk into the back room that had glass doors leading outside to the garden. Belle had hung her mother’s picture in the lounge, so anyone who walked inside saw it immediately. “Because she is part of you, Branna, and deserves her place in your life.”
She’d given Mikey some things that she could tell meant a lot to him, and a few to Belle, who’d also been a constant in Georgie’s life. In time, she’d pack some of the knickknacks away and remove some of the doilies, but for now, she was happy with the blend.
The day after her final doctor’s visit, where Dr. McBride had given her the all-clear, she woke and pulled on her running shorts and singlet. After lacing up her shoes, she took herself outside as the sun began to rise. Here in Howling, she didn’t need music in her ears; there was silence here, no blaring horns or city noise. She stretched, her muscles were tight after so long with no activity, and then she ran down the drive and turned left, which would take her around the lake.
Now this, Branna, will be heaven, she thought, as the sun slowly began to rise over the lake. It was cool, but she was soon warm. It felt wonderful to be running again, especially after days spent bent over her desk. The brace was still on, but Dr. McBride said she could at least now run and type, but if it hurt she had to stop. She’d done a fair bit of one-fingered typing the past few days and was looking forward to growing her word count before her agent called to give the talk about the importance of meeting deadlines.
Inhaling the fresh country air, Branna began to hum an Irish ballad, one her grandmother had sung to her as a child. She saw a track that disappeared into the redwoods that she would investigate one day. Then, passing a driveway, she looked up, wondering if she knew the person who lived there. Her stomach dropped to the soles of her shoes when she saw Jake McBride jogging down in his long steady stride. She didn’t think he’d seen her, so there was time to turn around, or maybe she should speed up?
“Morning.”
Damn, why did he have to be her closest neighbor?Branna didn’t stop, just waved her hand over her head and kept running. She didn’t want to share her first run, and especially not with a man who had taken up far too much of her thoughts the past few days.
“Nice day for it.”
He’d caught her in a few strides. Shooting him a look, she noticed his eyes were bloodshot. She took in those long muscular legs encased in gray running shorts and wide shoulders in a torn, faded T-shirt with Medical Corps U.S. Army on it.
“Your eyes are bleeding, McBride.”
“Card night last night.”
As she’d never been to a card night, nor wanted to, Branna said nothing further, and he seemed happy to follow her lead. They ran as the day woke around them. On one side, there were trees and grass, on the other a beautiful clear lake with mountains beyond, and she thought, had Jake not been there, she could just about be perfectly happy right at that moment.
He disturbed her; it was a fact and always had been. If he was near, she was aware of him… even if she didn’t want to be.
“How often do you run?”
He may be hungover, but he wasn’t breathless, which told her he was as used to running as she was.
“As often as I can, mostly four times a week, but here it’ll probably be more.”
“How far do you go?”
“Five to ten miles a run, sometimes less or more. I don’t really plan it. It’s just how I feel on the day.”
