Linda Turner - Never Been Kissed

“Tomorrow,” he replied, “but the distance isn’t a problem. I can walk if I have to. When can I see it?”

“Right now,” Nick said, grinning, and led the way to his patrol car.

There was a time in his life when Reilly wouldn’t have looked twice at a log cabin. He wasn’t an outdoorsman, and the rustic look had never appealed to him. But when Nick drove down the winding drive that led to the cabin, Reilly had to admit there was something about the place that immediately caught his eye.

Just as Nick had promised, the cabin offered all the privacy anyone could possibly want. Nestled among a thick stand of pines and set well back on a two-acre lot, it blended in with the trees and was virtually impossible to see from the road. The nearest neighbor may have been a half mile away, but it might as well have been a hundred. You couldn’t see another living soul for what looked like miles in any direction.

He liked the idea of not being bothered by neighbors as he had been in L.A. He’d known they were concerned about him, and he appreciated that, but all he’d wanted was the silence of his own company. Living out here, so far from anyone, he wouldn’t have to worry about someone dropping by to borrow a cup of sugar, thank God. And for no other reason than that, he was prepared to love the place even if it turned out to be an architectural nightmare.

The cabin that Nick had built with the help of some friends, however, was far from the leaning shack that Reilly had expected. It may have been rough-hewn and a quarter of the size of his old house in L.A., but it had a porch across the front and back, a fieldstone fireplace, and paned windows that gave it an old-fashioned charm that would be nice to come home to after a long day at work. As Nick braked to a stop in the circular drive and cut the engine, Reilly took one long look and didn’t need to see anything else.

“I’ll take it.”

Already in the process of stepping from the car, Nick leaned down to swivel a sharp look at him. “Don’t you want to look inside?”

“Sure, but it’s just a formality,” he retorted. “This is just what I was looking for. Is it furnished?”

Amazed that he could make a decision so easily, Nick nodded. “I didn’t take much when I married Merry and moved into her place—just a chest and a couple of end tables. When do you expect your things from California? You can go ahead and move in today if you like, but it’s going to take me a couple of days to find a place to store everything—”

“Don’t bother. I’ll take it the way it is, if that’s okay with you. I sold all my things in California with the house.”

Surprised, Nick wanted to ask him what could bring a man to sell everything he owned and cut all ties with his past, but Reilly’s expression had turned distant, his eyes shuttered. Wondering what his story was, Nick didn’t push. In his business, he’d learned that people talked when they were ready. And judging from the wall he had built around himself, Reilly was a long way from ready.

Respecting his privacy, Nick said easily, “Sure. No problem.” Naming a fair market price for the rent, he arched a brow at him. “How does that sound to you?”

“More than fair,” Reilly replied, and stuck out his hand. “So we have a deal?”

Pleased, Nick grinned and shook his hand. “Deal!”

“Sorry, Wanda, darling, but a full house beats three of a kind. If my calculations are right you now owe me six million big ones and a handful of M&M candies. I’ll take the candy now, thank you very much.”

“Not so fast, Robin Hood,” Janey drawled before Scott Bradford could grab the colorful candy piled high in the middle of the table. “You may have a full house, but if I remember correctly, that can’t hold a candle to a royal flush.” Smiling hugely, she laid down her cards on the table to the cheers of Scott’s wife, Wanda, who was down to her last piece of candy. Her brown eyes dancing, Janey smiled smugly at Scott. “Now what was that you were saying about candy, pretty boy?”

For an answer he shot her a less-than-polite hand gesture.

Far from offended, Janey only laughed. She’d known Scott all her life—his uncle’s ranch boarded her family’s, and they’d gone through school together. And for the last few years he and Wanda invariably spent two evenings a week with Janey at the local volunteer fire department volunteering as emergency medical technicians. And tonight, as most Thursday nights, they passed the time playing poker while they waited for the radio to crackle to life with the report of an accident or the phone to ring with an emergency call.

They rarely got either.

Oh, they got their fair share of calls, but the calls were usually for something minor—like a twisted ankle or heart pains that turned out to be heartburn, and then there was the time Margaret Hopper got stuck in the bathtub and it took not only the entire EMT team but two firefighters, as well, to get her out. Tonight the phone was thankfully silent. Janey hoped it stayed that way.

A grin twitching at his lips, Scott watched her rake in her winnings and groaned in pretended pain. When Janey arched an inquiring brow at him, he pressed a hand to his stomach and moaned again. “I think I must be going through withdrawals. Help me, Janey. You wouldn’t deny your old friend a few M&Ms, would you? I’m dying here.”

“Then we’ve got to do something!” Jumping to her feet, she grabbed her stethoscope. “Quick, Wanda, help me get him into the ambulance. We’ve got to get him to the hospital.”

“Do you want me to call your mama, honey?” his wife crooned, laughing when he scowled at her. “I’m sure she would want to know about this—”

Enjoying themselves, she and Janey would have continued to tease him unmercifully, but before they got the chance, the radio suddenly started to crackle and Nick’s voice, rough with static, filled the room. “This is County One calling County 911. Janey? Are you there?”

Her smile fading, Janey stepped quickly over to the radio and grabbed the mike. “Yes, go ahead, Nick. What’s the problem?”

“We’ve got a one-vehicle accident out on Eagle Ridge Highway ten miles north of town. The driver took a curve too fast and rolled his SUV. He and his girlfriend weren’t wearing their seat belts, and were both thrown from the vehicle. You’d better get out here as quick as you can.”

He didn’t have to tell her twice. Already reaching for her bag, Janey said, “We’re on our way.”

They may have been volunteers, but they, like the rest of the local residents who worked the station on a regular basis, prided themselves on always being ready for whatever emergency cropped up. And this time was no exception. The ambulance was stocked with everything they needed, and by the time Janey ended the call a few seconds later, the rest of the team was already in the cab of the vehicle and waiting for her. She quickly jumped in next to Wanda, who sat in the middle, and was still reaching for her seat belt when Scott pulled out of the garage of the volunteer fire department with sirens blazing. Seconds later they turned north on the Eagle Ridge Highway and left town far behind.

If it hadn’t been for the flares Nick had set out marking the spot of the accident, they might have driven right past without even noticing it. In the dark it was impossible to see the wrecked car at the bottom of the ravine that ran parallel with the highway.

Nick had, however, managed to get his patrol car down there, and Scott carefully followed his path in the ambulance. “Ouch,” he said when the vehicle’s headlights landed on the smashed SUV. A foreign make that obviously didn’t stand up well to crash tests, it was banged in on all sides and nearly as flat as a pancake.