“Well, I know you want coffee, you always hit SG as soon as you get to town, but that’s not the reason for your bitchy tone,” Poppy responded, with all the conviction of a friend who knew her far too well.
Wren saw the swish of tail feathers, heard Reggie’s squawk, and the traffic started to move. “Got to go, Pops, Reggie has finally shifted his feathery butt.”
“H-Town,” Poppy murmured. “I swear it just keeps getting weirder.”
Wren started her car, inched forward, and slammed on the brakes when old Mrs. Donalds, the basket of her vintage bike decorated in tinsel, cut across her. Her gray hair was streaked purple, and she wore rapper-style sunglasses on her old-as-time wrinkled face. Today’s bikini was a lemon and purple concoction, a bright orange boa covering, thankfully, the bulk of her saggy chest.
Weird was a kind way to describe H-Town. Batshit bizarre was far more accurate.
ChapterTwo
Across the road, Dr. Dane Trafford scowled at the five-man, two-boy group in front of him, warily eyeing the red face and heavy breathing of the overweight man to his right. He’d yet to understand how his keep-him-sane training had become a group activity.
Just two days after moving into his summer rental, a cottage overlooking the lake, Dane had been doing a strength workout in the park after his eight-mile run, when a man approached him asking if he could follow along. He’d shrugged. If the guy wanted to try and keep up, it was no skin off his nose. The next morning, the man was back with someone else. Solstice Springs was a small town—the kind of place where gossip was a town sport—because somehow, he’d become the Pied Piper of Pull-Ups.
The plump guy turned redder. Dane thought about telling him to slow down, to take it easy, but he wasn’t his doctor or his dad.
He looked across the park, his attention snagged by a slim, toned arm dangling out of a small SUV, feminine fingers tapping. He shook his head at the cause of the traffic jam, a damn turkey squatting in the middle of the road, ignoring the shooing hands of two women trying to get it to budge.
Dane returned his attention to the owner of the arm, taking in her profile. Straight nose, round cheeks, pointed chin, and full and sexy lips. His heart, trained to remain steady, bumped once, then again. She pushed her sunglasses into the long, streaky hair she’d gathered into a pile on top of her head, as if she’d been in a hurry and couldn’t be bothered to fuss. He got the impression of light, big eyes.
Resident? Tourist? He was surprised to find himself interested enough to wonder. It had been a while since a woman had intrigued him. She turned her head in his direction and, too old to be caught ogling, he snapped his head back to the group.
“Push-ups,” he grunted, dropping into position. He flattened his hands, tightened his core, and quickly did ten, ignoring the grunts coming from in front of him. Lifting his head, he watched as the others struggled to keep themselves in position, the shaking shoulders, the straining arms. Two had the completely wrong form.
“Blue shirt and yellow tank, drop your hips and widen your feet,” he commanded. How the fuck had he become a fitness trainer?
He did another fifteen and, holding the plank position, watched a father and son at the back of the group. The dad was one of those gym-bro fitness junkies—loud, ripped, and way too proud of himself. The son was all elbows and red hair, hating every damn second.
“For God’s sake, Colt, do it right! You’ve got arms like spaghetti strands!”
Dane narrowed his eyes at the dad’s condescending, irritated tone. He sounded just like his old man, clipped, commanding, contemptuous, happy to tear down but not build up. Dane turned his head and took in the lake to the right, thinking of the six weeks he’d spent here when he was ten.
Six months after his mom died, he and his dad spent over a month in a cabin on the lake, fishing, swimming, messing around in boats. It was the first and only time his dad had acted like his dad and not his commanding officer. Not that he’d chosen this town because of a memory; the hiking, kayaking, and running trails surrounding the town were far bigger, and more practical draw cards.
“Fucking useless.”
The boy flushed, his face now as red as his hair, and bit his lip as he dropped down and struggled to push himself up. Toxic masculinity. The General had been a master at it. Dane, still holding his position, cleared his throat. “Hey, Highlights,” he called, referring to the dad’s aggressively salon-streaked hair. “You look fitter than most. You up for a challenge?”
He saw the confidence in his eyes, the flare of competitiveness.You think you can beat me, dickhead? You can try.“Let’s push ourselves a little,” he suggested.
“I’m with you, bro.” As he expected, Highlights didn’t look past the surface—he saw the calm tone, the steady face, and missed the quiet contempt simmering underneath.
He wasn’t his fuckingbro. Not even a little. So Dane clapped his hands between push-ups, steady and unhurried, letting the man sweat and strain. Dane caught Colt’s quick little grin, suggesting he was enjoying watching someone else outmaneuver his overbearing father.
When Highlights’s breathing got ragged and his arms started to shake, Dane eased off.
“That’s it. Cool down on your own.”
He wiped his face with the hem of his shirt, grabbed his water bottle, and chugged. The lake shimmered through the trees—quiet, pretty, nothing like the places where he usually worked. Places that bled. Wrecked cities he couldn’t get out of his head.
He’d taken this break—this enforced, don’t-argue-with-us break—because the last job had shifted something deep inside him. Too much blood, too much chaos, and then … nothing. Freezing mid-triage, his brain refusing to cooperate with his hands. Classic burnout, they’d said. Possible PTSD. A generous dose of “what now, Dane?”
So here he was sweating through half the day, pretending nature could settle his nerves, pretending he wasn’t terrified that the next emergency would prove him to still be useless, unresponsive. Pretending he wasn’t making a list of all the expectations he’d never met.
He shoved a hand through his hair and finished his water. He had a couple of months to get his head straight, to figure out if he could go back to the career that defined him … or if he needed to rebuild his entire world.
He didn’t know. And the not knowing ate away at the lining in his stomach.
