“You should really stop insulting me as I’m doing you a favor,” I warn and as soon as we’re on the drive, I walk past my trailer and start down the street. That makes her start squirming again and I almost drop her, so I yank her even closer and turn my head to glare directly at her.
Our faces are so close together the tips of our noses are almost touching. Her eyes, although filled with anger and pain, are mesmerizing. I always knew they were hazel, but I thought that just meant a really light brown. This close I can see that there is hardly any brown in them. They are a mix of amber and green and a touch of gray. “You’re incredibly beautiful, despite your personality, you know that?”
She blinks and rears her head back a little. “What the fuck.”
“I’m just saying.” I shrug as best I can with her in my arms. “If you’d just calm the fuck down and maybe cut me some slack you’d be irresistible.”
“So I should what? Smile more?” she asks, seething. “I’m kind of going through something personal and I’m currently being taken against my will God knows where by a man I dislike immensely, so excuse me if I’m not perky enough for you. And another thing, I don’t want to be irresistible to you or anyone else.”
“Well then, goal crushed!” I announce with mock enthusiasm. She flips me the bird a millimeter from my face and I pretend to bobble her, like I might drop her, so she squeaks and wraps her warms tightly around my neck. “Also you don’t know me.”
“Excuse me?” she asks.
“You’re with a man you don’t know,” I explain. “Not one you don’t like. I was a boy you didn’t like. I’m a man now, and you don’t know me, so you can’t dislike me.”
She stares at me as if to say Get the fuck out. And so I grin at her and wink. “Trust me, sweetheart, Holden Hendricks the teenager was a piece of work worthy of hate. But Holden Hendricks the adult is actually a pretty decent guy.”
“Maybe you can be a decent guy,” she says but she’s still glaring at me. “You coming to make sure I was okay when Ty and I were fighting was a decent thing to do. And I was grateful. But you assuming that I forgave him and calling out my childhood self-esteem issues was a totally judgmental dick move.”
“So he isn’t your boyfriend?”
“What the hell are we doing?” she asks in a heated whisper, ignoring my question. “Tell me or I’ll just start screaming.”
“We’re going to Dr. Whittaker’s place.”
“His house?”
“Yep.” I turn left toward the center of town. “He lifted the cottage and had a small separate office built under it last year so he could still work part-time. Said he wasn’t ready for retirement.”
“Didn’t you knock his kid Robbie’s teeth out in a fight at the beach when you were fourteen?” Winnie questions.
“Wow you have a better memory than an elephant,” I snark back.
“Did you just call me an elephant?” she snaps.
“No,” I retort. “Dr. Whittaker doesn’t even remember that by the way. I know because I apologized to him when I worked on his renos.”
“He forgave you?” She seems so baffled, like it’s an impossibility.
“After I reminded him what I did, yes,” I smile at her. “You can actually blame him while he stitches you up because he’s the reason I’m back in town permanently. When I did the job here for him, Carter Construction was looking for people and I was short on jobs so I came out. When Dr. Whittaker forgave me, I decided to see if I could make amends with everyone and I came back.”
“You can’t,” she says after a moment of silence.
“We’ll see,” I reply as I climb the stairs of the Whittaker house. The shingle on his office door says “closed,” as expected. He only works three days a week and only until three. I had to see him once this summer when I stupidly put a nail through my finger.
I gently place Winnie on her own feet once we hit his large wraparound porch. She immediately pulls away from me, but she can’t put her full weight on her bad knee so she has to reach out and grab my shoulder again. I circle her waist with my right arm to hold her steady and ring Dr. Whittaker’s bell.
He answers right away. I haven’t seen him in a couple months, but he hasn’t changed. He’s still got a slight belly, curly salt-and-pepper hair, kind brown eyes and a warm smile. “Holden! How are you?”
“I’m good, Doc, but my friend Winnie fell off her bike,” I explain as we shake hands and I motion toward Winnie, who is clutching the back of one of the rocking chairs on his porch.
Dr. Whittaker recognizes her immediately. “Winnie Braddock!” he exclaims, and his brown eyes shift to her exposed knee. “Oh dear! Let’s go down to my office so I can get a proper look at that.”
He steps onto the porch, but reaches back in and grabs something from a hook by the door—a white lab coat. He closes his front door, slips the lab coat on over his checkered blue shirt, and starts for the stairs. I lift Winnie back up before she can object and the look on her face says that she wants to, wholeheartedly. By the time I get us down the stairs, Dr. Whittaker has already opened the door to his small office. As he turns on the lights, I stride right in and drop her butt onto the exam table. She looks angrier than a nest of hornets, but she manages a “thank you.”
Dr. Whittaker puts on his glasses and some weird headgear thing with a light on it I swear he must have gotten at an antique sale and bends down over her knee. “Yeah. You’re gonna need some butterfly tape or maybe even a stitch or two. But first, we have to clean it up. There’s still gravel in this. When did you have your last tetanus shot, Winnie?”
“I have no idea,” she answers back.
