Beyond the Waves (Pacific Shores Book 1) (25 page)

In the future? Marie swallowed. She tipped him a nod of forgiveness.

He opened her door, and she sank into her seat while he trotted around to the driver’s side. To her chagrin, she found that while her three-year-old hadn’t needed help with her seat belt, she did. There was no way to keep the compression on her finger and pull the belt across her at the same time. In frustration she gave up. She could just ride to the hospital without one on.

But before she knew what he planned, Reece propped one arm behind her seat and leaned across her to grab her seat belt. For one split moment he paused and met her gaze, his face, shaded by the brim of his hat, only inches from hers. She smelled the crisp familiar scent of his aftershave and saw the glint of something inviting in his eyes. And then he eased back and clicked her belt in. He adjusted the driver’s seat to give more room for his legs and turned the key.

Her car coughed a couple times but didn’t catch right away.

“It always does that. You have to pump the gas a little.” She tipped her head against the seat rest.

Reece pushed twice on the gas pedal and tried again.

Nothing.

Marie bit the inside of her lip. This was not happening to her, was it? She totally had no money to spend on her car. This day threatened to overwhelm her. She lolled her head over to look at the ocean across the road from Thrift and Save. It stretched into the distance, blue green meeting blue-gray sky on the sill of the horizon. She pressed her lips together and scrunched her eyes shut. She was not going to cry. Tears would not solve a single thing.

Reece engaged the starter several more times between pumps, all to no avail. He cleared his throat and glanced over at Marie.

Head back, she was staring out over the Pacific, and he could see the distinct shimmer of extra moisture in her eyes. He wanted to reach over and clasp her shoulder, but shoved his hands under his legs instead. He needed to remember why he’d walked away from her in the first place. He didn’t know if she was any closer to the Lord now than she’d been, and no matter how beautiful she was, or how many emotions this woman could make him feel, one thing he did know was that he wanted a marriage where both he and his wife would put God first. Which clearly hadn’t been the case with Marie the last time they’d been dating.

He shook off the memories. He really needed to get her in to have that finger fixed. “Let me grab my truck and give us a jump. Sit tight. Shouldn’t take more than a minute.”

He had to park behind her because there were no empty spaces nearby, but thankfully he had long enough cables. He parked, hooked up the cables, and tried the key again. Her little car still wouldn’t start.

Marie looked weary.

He did squeeze her shoulder this time. Only in a gesture of friendship. “One thing at a time, huh? My truck to the hospital, and then I’ll help you figure out what to do about your car.”

She sighed softly. “Thanks.”

“My pleasure.” He clicked her seat belt open and then got out and unhooked the cables and jogged them back to his truck. By the time he returned to grab Alyssa, Marie had already wrestled open the back door. He rested a hand on her arm before she could try and lift Alyssa out. “I’ll get her.” The tyke was sound asleep, a little bunny he hadn’t noticed before tucked under one arm.

Marie moved out of his way, smiling softly. “Can you lift both her and the seat at the same time? We can just leave her belted in and transfer her to your truck.”

He grinned at the thought of her questioning whether he could lift a kid, who couldn’t weigh twenty-five pounds soaking wet, and a car seat, which weighed maybe ten. The guys at Deschutes Rejuvenation would get a kick out of that. “Yeah, I think I can manage.”

It didn’t take him long to get both of them buckled into his truck.

As he put the truck in reverse, Marie spoke. “Thanks for driving me. I’m sorry we’re going to end up taking up such a chunk of your day.”

He shook his head and eased the truck out onto the main road. “It’s not a problem, at all.” A comfortable silence settled, but he really wanted to know a little more about her life. “So tell me about yourself.”

His peripheral vision caught the lift of one slender shoulder. “Oh, you know. Pretty much the same as before, except I have a little girl now.”

Disappointment settled.

“I still work at Mom’s Gym with Taysia Sumner. Still live in the same apartment. What about you? Where have you been for the past several years?”

The hospital lay just ahead to the right. He put on his blinker and pulled into the lot near the emergency room. “I’ve been working for a wilderness camp for troubled teen boys. They come to us from all sorts of backgrounds and live with us for six months. Hopefully they go home changed. I’ve loved it. But after eight rotations, I was feeling a little burnout. And then Dad took sick. So”—he shrugged—“I’m here to help Mom with the bed-and-breakfast for the foreseeable future.”

“Oh.”

Curiosity furrowed his brow as he stopped in a parking spot. Was it disappointment he heard in her tone? He glanced back at Alyssa. “Do you want me to take her out of her seat or just bring her seat in?”

Marie pressed her lips together. “If you don’t mind holding her, I think she’ll stay asleep longer than if we leave her in the seat.”

“I don’t mind at all.” Carefully, he unbuckled the tyke and lifted her so her head lolled against his shoulder. Locking the truck, he shoved the keys into his pocket and then pressed a hand to Marie’s back, directing her toward the emergency entrance.

Her feet seemed to drag until she finally came to a complete standstill. “Do you think I really need stitches?”

“Yes, I’m afraid you will. Listen, if it’s the procedure that has you worried, I’ll stay with you the whole time.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just—” She tucked one side of her lower lip between her teeth. “Never mind, let’s just get this over with.”

Chapter 3

Marie couldn’t believe she’d almost blurted out that her finances were already stretched so thin she could read a book through them. Being around Reece was dangerous. He had a way of extracting things from her without her even knowing he was doing it.

The doors to the emergency room whooshed open, and the interior of the money-sucking facility loomed.

Okay, Lord, here we go. I could really use some help here. I’m sure You were looking over my shoulder when I was balancing my checkbook the other day? She paused. Why was it she never seemed to turn to God with her concerns before she worried and agonized about them till she was nearly a blubbering puddle? She winced a glance upward. Forgive me? You are probably wishing I would learn to quit fretting about You providing so You could move on to some other lesson, huh? If I quit stressing, will You drop a big check from the sky? She wrinkled her nose as they stopped before an unoccupied desk, behind which a door stood ajar. Probably doesn’t work like that, huh? I know. Okay, I’m trying to let this go. I trust You, I really do. And I’m so thankful for all the ways You’ve changed me. Help me to keep growing and learning to trust more.

Reece wore a worried frown. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. “Yep. Just praying a little.”

An emotion she couldn’t quite peg softened his features and brightened his eyes. He opened his mouth like he wanted to respond, but just then a woman in blue scrubs bustled through the door and plopped into the chair behind the desk. She took in Reece and Alyssa first, and then her focus zoned in on Marie’s bloody shirt. One eyebrow quirked. “What can we do for you today?”

Marie lifted the offending appendage still clamped carefully in her other fist. “I cut my finger.”

The nurse was already pulling up a form on her computer. “I can see that. How did you cut it, and how deep did it look?”

“Uh…on a broken pickle jar, and I think it’s pretty deep.”

“How much pain are you in on a scale of one to ten? Ten being the most pain you’ve ever felt in your life.”

Marie scrunched up her face. Did it matter if she wasn’t in too much pain but might bleed a bucket on their floor? “Two, maybe three?”

The questions continued…and continued. Marie found a moment to be thankful Alyssa was sound asleep and that Reece was standing by so patiently and even digging out her insurance card for her when he really should be home with his groceries already. And then the dreaded words she’d known were coming.

“Your co-pay is seventy-five dollars. How would you like to pay for it today?”

Marie swallowed. It might as well be a thousand. She would just have to put it on the credit card she’d been trying to pay off. It still carried a good percentage of the medical costs she’d incurred when Alyssa was born a couple of weeks prematurely and had needed to stay extra days in the neonatal unit. And the percentage rate was outrageous, but she didn’t have any other options.

She glanced apologetically at Reece. “Could you grab the Visa card in my wallet? It has an Oregon Duck logo on it.”

Reece gave her an exaggerated wince as he angled his body so Alyssa would stay on his shoulder and dug into her purse for the third time that day. “The Ducks? Everyone knows OSU is the better school.” He winked.

A tremor of awareness shot through her. She really needed to put the brakes on her disobedient emotions. She’d barely thought of Dan since she’d heard Reece’s voice in the store, and then only because Alyssa had brought him up. Guilt niggled at her. After all, she’d promised the man she would think about his proposal.

Reece was eyeing her as though he expected a response.

She swallowed and shrugged. “The duck was cuter.” And would have been the school of her choice if she hadn’t gotten pregnant her senior year of high school.

Alyssa’s sweet face came into focus. Even though she was the best mistake Marie had ever made, it still pained her to know she’d never be able to tell Alyssa the name of her father. Wasn’t it going to be some conversation one day when Alyssa grew old enough to ask?

“Mom, who’s my dad?”

“I don’t know, honey, could be any one of a number of guys I met down at Pete’s Bar.”

Marie blinked herself back to the present and noticed Reece was still fumbling to find her card. It was only a moment before he seemed to recover, though, and he handed it to the nurse.

“All right, we’ll just get you to sign the slip after we can get your finger stitched up for you. Right this way, please.”

Thirty minutes later, they were on their way out of the hospital parking lot, Marie with a numb finger that had required seven stitches and a prescription for antibiotics she probably shouldn’t spend money on. Thankfully, they’d said she only nicked the tendon and it should heal up on its own.

It was only 1:00 p.m., but exhaustion gritted behind her eyelids, and there really wasn’t anything at the grocery store they couldn’t live without until tomorrow. Besides, if she didn’t get away from this man’s kind thoughtfulness real soon, she was going to forget she was as contented as a seagull at a picnic with her life just the way it was. Which was one of the reasons she’d been putting Dan off for a while now. “Reece, if you don’t mind, could you just drop us at my apartment? I don’t really need the groceries until tomorrow. I’ll just go back and make another run at it after church.”

He angled her a quick look, then returned his focus to the road. There was a bit of puzzlement on his face, but he only resettled his hat and said, “What about your prescription?”

She waved a hand and tried to come up with something that wouldn’t be an outright lie. “Alyssa can finish her nap at home. And we live close to the pharmacy.”

“Okay. Not a problem.”

“Thanks. Just turn right on Coral. And I’m only a block down on the right.”

“I remember. So…church? You still attend with Taysia?” Reece’s thumbs tapped out a rhythm on the steering wheel.

“Oh, yeah, we all still go together.”

“They picking you up?”

She frowned. “No. Why would they—Oh! My car!” She felt the burn of humiliation. He must think she was such a ditz. “Normally I drive Alyssa and me. But I’m sure they won’t mind picking us up tomorrow. I’ll just give them a call.” What was she going to do about the betrayal of her Corolla? She pushed the thought aside. Her Judas of a car was a problem for another day.

He cleared his throat and turned on his blinker as Coral approached. “I can pick you up, if you like.”

Hadn’t she just been telling herself she needed to eschew the man’s kindness? Yet, it would be easier just to have him get them. And she couldn’t just skip tomorrow, because she was on for Sweet Inspirations. Maybe she should call Dan and have him get them? But he lived on the other side of the church from them.

She bit her lip in indecision for a moment before finally saying, “I guess if you don’t mind, it would be a big help. Thank you.”

“Happy to help.”

Her pulse launched into a flat-out sprint, and she clenched her teeth in chagrin. He was only offering as a friend. And besides, if it was an offer of more, her answer would be a firm no. This was the man who had shredded her heart with the efficiency of a meat grinder. And on top of that…even if she was willing to risk her heart to him again, there was no doubt that a guy like Reece deserved a woman who didn’t come with so much baggage. Accepting his help would only complicate matters. So what was she thinking?

She wasn’t. That’s what. It was her exhaustion doing the thinking for her. She would just have to be doubly on her guard, that was all.

Reece eased to a stop in the space in front of her building, an old two-story house which had been converted into four apartments, two up and two down.

So he had remembered where she lived.

He hopped out and jogged around to her side to get Alyssa. “I’ll get her for you.”

Since she didn’t know how she would have managed to haul Alyssa and the big car seat all the way up the narrow staircase with her numb finger that resembled a mini banana, she only stepped back and thanked him. “I’ll get the car seat.”

When they stepped into her living room from the upper hallway, Reece paused and looked around.