A Man She Can Trust

Had she moved the rocker to the room’s front window last weekend? Her heart skipped a beat as she stared at it.

Almost imperceptibly, it appeared to be moving…as in those moments after someone has gotten up and walked away.

You really need more sleep. Next you’ll be seeing apparitions in the hallway and bogeymen in your closet.

It was only the wind, of course. Drafts found their way into the old house whenever the wind blew outside.

A faint sound echoed down the shotgun hallway leading to the front entry. Jill looked down, surprised to see her hands clenched.

It’s only my imagination.

Or Sheriff Johnson, here to give her a logical explanation for the lights at Warren’s house.

She strode to the front door, already forming an apology, and pulled it open.

“I suppose it was n-nothing…”

She stammered to a halt, her hand at her throat, and stared into the face of the man who’d sworn he’d never set foot on Chapel Hill again.

Dear Reader,

Beautiful northern Wisconsin…just the words make me think of pine-scented breezes, sparkling sapphire lakes and blazing fall colors. But even the loveliest places have their darker side, and that’s definitely true for the little town of Blackberry Hill.

Blackberry Hill Memorial is a small, struggling hospital facing serious challenges, and the residents of this town face them, as well. For Dr. Jill Edwards and her husband, Grant, their troubled marriage may provide a perfect opportunity for an old enemy to seek revenge…and for an old ghost to find peace at last. For Grace Fisher, retirement is just ahead—only now she finds herself with a troubled teenage nephew to raise and a chance for her own once-in-a-lifetime love. Who knew life could change so quickly?

I love writing stories that touch on the lives of families of every generation and the problems so many of us face. But above all, I love writing about men and women who must overcome nearly insurmountable obstacles in search of love and commitment.

I hope you enjoy Jill and Grant’s story, and that you’ll come back to the third in the BLACKBERRY HILL MEMORIAL series in August. If you missed the first book in the series, Almost a Family, you can find it at www.eHarlequin.com.

I love hearing from readers at www.roxannerustand.com, www.booksbyrustand.com or at P.O. Box 2550, Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52406-2550. Send a SASE and I’ll send you bookmarks or other promotional material.

Wishing you all the best for your own happily ever after!

Roxanne Rustand

A Man She Can Trust

Roxanne Rustand

With love to Larry, Andy, Brian and Emily.

I am so proud of all of you!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

With many thanks to Rene Miller for her research assistance

into small-town law practices, Michelle Klosterman, R.N.

CEN (Certified in Emergency Nursing), whose expertise in

the operation of small-town hospitals has been invaluable,

and to Lyn Cote for your friendship and your assistance with

details of life in northern Wisconsin!

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

HE WAS LATE again…and this time, she knew why.

Jill dropped her gaze from the mantel clock to the dying embers in the fireplace, her fingers pressed deep into the back of her husband’s leather recliner.

Her stomach pitched at the sound of a car door slamming outside. She nearly turned away and headed for the open staircase, knowing there’d still be a measure of security and comfort in feigning ignorance.

Dreading the confrontation to come.

Knowing that it was long overdue.

And well-aware that she deserved better than evenings alone and whispered conjecture among the people she passed on the streets of Blackberry Hill.

Some of her patients at the clinic knew. She’d seen the nervous darting of their eyes and their tentative, sympathetic smiles.

She’d even caught some of the rumors in the aisles of Crupper’s Family Grocery on Main, when the gossips hadn’t realized she was one aisle over. Sad, isn’t it? A handsome couple like that. Goes to show money and fancy degrees don’t guarantee happiness.

But it wasn’t just the rumors and sympathy. It was everything else over the past two years that had undermined what they’d once had, until now they were strangers living under the same roof.

Grant’s keys jingled outside the front entryway. The door swung open and he walked inside, dropped his briefcase on the antique settee and started down the wide central hallway leading past the parlor and dining room to the kitchen and den.

“Grant.”

He faltered and turned, one brow raised in surprise. “You’re up late,” he said.

“Or early. It’s already two-thirty, Grant. Where have you been?”

“It was my day to be at the Kendrick office.” Irritation flickered in his dark, handsome face. “You know how far that is.”

“Two hours.” She took a deep breath. “And you’re usually back by seven-thirty. I was worried about you, so I called your brother. He said you were both done at the courthouse by five, but you didn’t go back to his office.”

“As if he knew.” Grant lowered his voice. “He sure as hell wasn’t there. He took off for the golf course.”

Before, she’d just felt anxiety over this inevitable meeting. Now, anger gnawed at her and her heart beat at a dizzying pace. “He was there, at seven. You weren’t. He forgot his billfold.”

Grant spun on his heel and strode into the parlor to within a few feet of her, a muscle ticking at the side of his jaw. “So, Detective Jill on the case. Assuming the worst.”

“It’s a little hard to ignore the rumors flying around this town. It’s even harder to ignore the way people glance at me and look away, as if they’re wondering when the poor, stupid wife is going to catch on.”

His dark brown eyes glittered. “To what, Jill? Say it.”

“You’ve been late five nights out of seven the past week. When you’re here, you may as well not be—you’re a million miles away. You’ve been seen with that red-haired woman in your car on back country roads. And,” Jill added bitterly, “this entire town seemed to know what was going on weeks before I ever caught on.”

His voice dropped another level—a sure sign of his anger. “So you’ve accused, tried and convicted me. Without saying a word. Without asking me a thing.”

“It doesn’t take much imagination. I sit in this house alone, night after night after night.”

“Then you ought to be happy. You sure put yourself and this heap of rubble above anything I want.”

“That’s hardly fair.”

“Isn’t it?” He cursed under his breath. “It’s all about you, Jill. Always. We moved three times to accommodate med school, your internship and your residency. I was glad to do it, if it made you happy. Then we moved here so I could help my dad, and I wanted a nice place in town. One that wouldn’t consume every last second of my time just trying to make it livable. I want a family. Except it’s still just all about you.”

Afraid to say a word, she felt as if she was teetering at the edge of a precipice with jagged glass waiting far below.

“You got what you wanted,” he continued, the absence of emotion and the cold, flat expression in his eyes more chilling than outright anger. “In every way. You got your career. You got this damned house—a place that’s done nothing but drive us further apart. And that little inconvenience of an unexpected pregnancy? Gone.”

She winced. “That’s so unfair. So totally cruel and unfair.”

“Unfair?” He bit out the word. “Would you have lost that baby if you’d listened to me? You always do what you want, no matter what anyone says. And as for this marriage? I think we know what’s left of it. If you’ve got to ask if I’ve cheated on you, then we are truly over.”

She glared at him, stunned by his attack. “I shouldn’t have to ask.”

“For what it’s worth, I haven’t.” Their eyes locked in anger. Then he took a step away. “I’ll be back tomorrow for my things.”

He grabbed his briefcase and headed for the entryway. The door crashed against the wall as he went out.

And just that fast, he was gone—but it wasn’t a surprise.

Earlier tonight, after talking to Phil, she’d been worried. Grant was lean, hard-muscled. He’d started running four miles a day and lifting weights after his father had his first heart attack at fifty, and was in superb condition. But as a physician, she knew even young, healthy males could keel over. And seeing sick people day after day made her all the more aware of the risks.

So she’d driven to town, expecting Grant had come back from Kendrick to put in some hours at his father’s law office. Wanting to check on him…though maybe that had just been an excuse.

On the way, she’d imagined that he might tear himself away from his work, so they could go to a quiet little restaurant for a late supper and a chance to visit, away from the battlefield of home.

A chance, perhaps, to heal their latest rift over her plans to remodel their old Victorian.

His car had been behind the office just as she’d thought. She’d gone to the back and tried the doorknob. And then she’d heard the voices. Grant’s laughter. The sultry voice of a woman.

The lights inside had dimmed.

And with them, her last hopes for her marriage died.

CHAPTER ONE

“YOU TWO MADE one hell of a mistake, Missy.” Warren waggled a gnarled forefinger under Dr. Jill Edwards’s nose, his faded blue eyes fixed on hers with steely resolve. “It isn’t too late.”

Jill smiled patiently as she finished checking the surgical site on his chest, listened to his heart sounds then draped the stethoscope around her neck. She pulled the covers up to his shoulders. “That’s the most optimistic thinking I’ve heard from you yet, Warren. Given that your son and I have been separated for four months and that he lives two hours away.”

“But you’re not divorced,” he countered triumphantly. “Now, why is that?”

“I’m sure we’ll get to it…soon. Very soon.”

“He’s a lawyer. Could have done it right away.”

Jill sighed with affectionate exasperation. Warren was a lawyer, too, and she knew he’d argue this case until doomsday, but it wouldn’t change a thing.

There were good reasons for the separation. Painful ones—none of which would ever change. Given some technicalities with their property ownership, there were also very impersonal reasons for the delay of those final papers.

“Let it rest, Warren. And while you’re at it, I want you to rest, too.” She frowned at him to mask her worry. “This was your second heart attack, and that congestive heart failure isn’t getting any better. You work too hard and you drink too much. And—no matter what you tell me—I know you’re still smoking those cigars.”

His expression grew thoughtful. “So I should take it easy.”

“Exactly.”

“And I shouldn’t work such long hours.”

“Not if you want to be around to see your first grandchild. Which,” she added quickly, “Phil and Sandra are working on at this very moment.” At the cagey gleam in Warren’s eyes, she knew what was coming before he even started to speak.

“I think I’ll take some time off. Tend my flowers. Give the old ticker a rest.” He nodded to himself, warming to the idea. “God knows, I’ve let the place go since Marie died.”

Warren lived and breathed the law. His office lights burned late into the night and he was there every morning by eight. The likelihood of him staying away for even a day was nearly impossible to imagine. Unless…

“And of course, I’ll need someone to cover the office. For a while, that is. Someone who knows the practice inside and out. Someone who can relate to the fine people here in Blackberry Hill. Someone who—”

“So you’re going to ask Grant to come back.” The weight of the past settled heavily on her shoulders. “Doesn’t his brother need him?”

“Phil covered our office in Kendrick for years before Grant joined him last fall.” He shrugged. “I’m sure he can manage a while longer.”

“But Grant must have a personal caseload there, now. He’s probably very busy.”

“It’s only two hours away. If he needs to, he can commute to his active cases there.”

“But—”

“I’m sure he won’t mind coming back here for a few months. Not when his dad is so ill and all…then you wouldn’t have to stop by my place every day to check on things.” Warren’s glance cut toward the bags hanging from the IV pole by his bed. “Of course, if you think I’m ready for discharge, then I probably wouldn’t be needing any help…” His voice trailed off, tinged with a hint of hopefulness.

“You are such a stinker,” Jill shot back, hiding a smile. “If you’re bargaining for a quicker discharge, the answer is no. That infection was a doozy, and you’ve still got eight more days of IV antibiotics. After that, you’ll need a week or so of rehab to build your strength.”

Harumph. Warren settled back against his pillow and regarded her through narrowed eyes. “You and Grant deserve each other.”

She laughed as she picked up the clipboard on the bedside table. “There, Warren, is where you are totally wrong.”

AFTER FINISHING HER rounds at Blackberry Hill Memorial, Jill crunched through the snow in the staff parking lot, thankful for her heavy down jacket and warm boots. Snowflakes swirled beneath the security lights overhead, glittering like crystals against the black sky.

You and Grant deserve each other. Despite all of his contacts in this small town, Warren really didn’t have a clue what had happened to his son’s marriage. Either that, or he thought an affair—especially an affair with a client—was not a big deal.

With one mittened hand, she swept away the snow on the driver’s side window of her Sable station wagon. Beneath the snow she felt a thick cobblestone layer of ice.

“Wind chill of minus-forty tonight. Wind’s going to get up to thirty miles an hour, I hear,” Grace Fisher called out from her own car another row over. The stocky older woman, director of nursing at the hospital, waved her ice scraper. “Need this?”

“Got one—but thanks.” Jill slapped her mittens together to knock the snow off, then slid behind the wheel of her car to start the motor. Retrieving her own scraper, she got out again and started on the windshield. “I’ll bet you aren’t going to miss these north-woods winters when you retire.”

Grace laughed. “If I’m not on some southern beach, I’ll at least stay by my fire with a good book.”

Jill waved goodbye to her as Grace drove away, then bent over the hood and continued chipping at the ice, her cheeks and fingers already numb.

As soon as she cleared most of the windshield, she climbed back into the car and wrapped her arms around herself, shivering. She wished she had one of those remote car starters so it could have been warm and ready for her.

She drove out of the staff parking lot and took a left, heading down Main through the center of town.

Snow glistened beneath the street lamps, splashed with color where it reflected the neon lights of businesses along the three-block downtown area. In the summer, the shops bustled with the thousands of vacationers who swarmed to the beautiful lake district. Now, many of the upscale shops were closed until May, giving the street a rather melancholy air.

She passed the drugstore and the grocery store, both on the edge of town, then drove out into the darkness to Bitter Hollow Road, a narrow gravel lane a few miles past the last street lamps. Without the moon and stars overhead the darkness seemed impenetrable….

Until she rounded the last turn and found the lights blazing at Warren’s house.

Strange. He lived here alone. She certainly hadn’t left on the lights when she’d last stopped by to water the plants.

Fumbling for her cell phone, she slowed her car to a crawl then stopped by the mailbox at the end of the driveway.

The wind was picking up, buffeting clouds of snow beneath the faint light of the single security lamp at the peak of the garage.

She squinted through the falling snow, trying to make out the dark shape parked next to the garage and partially hidden by a stand of pines.

A vehicle, certainly…possibly an SUV, but Warren hadn’t said anything about anyone else coming out here.

An intruder…?

With the press of a speed-dial button she called Sheriff Randy Johnson’s office before turning up the heater to ward off the chill.

Five minutes stretched to ten, then fifteen.

At six o’clock, faint pinpoints of light appeared through the increasing snowfall, then drew up behind her. The sheriff briefly flashed the wigwag lights on the front grill of his car to identify himself. He appeared at her door a moment later.

She rolled down her window and flinched as a blast of icy wind hit her. “Thanks for coming out.”

“No problem, Doc.” Middle-aged and burly, the sheriff had always reminded her of a towering, congenial bear—one that could overpower just about anyone who dared challenge it. He squinted toward the house and garage. “Seen anyone?”

“No…but people inside the house wouldn’t know I’m here. I turned off my lights as soon as I stopped.”

He nodded his approval. “You were smart not to go barging in. For years, I’ve been telling Warren he should move closer to town. Even with a security system, this is way too isolated for the old guy.”

“I’m supposed to be taking care of his plants,” she said through chattering teeth.

“My deputy and I will check this out. If you want to go on home, that would be just fine. I’ll give you a call in a bit…or we can just stop up at your place.”

Imagining that he wanted her out of the way in case of trouble, she hesitated, then waved goodbye. She shifted her car into Reverse, backed carefully around the patrol car and headed slowly up the two miles to her own home on Bitter Creek Road.

The Sable bucked through the drifts. She nearly buried it at the low spot where the bridge crossed the creek, but then the spinning tires gained purchase against the gravel beneath the snow and lurched forward. Jill exhaled in relief as she made it up into the timber, where the pines and winter-bare undergrowth of the forest blocked the drifting snow.

At the top of Chapel Hill, the trees gave way to a small clearing and the two-and-a-half-story, red-brick Victorian she and Grant had bought last summer. Back when they’d still imagined filling it with a half-dozen children someday.

Back when she’d still believed in her own fairy-tale ending. After growing up poor raised by her single mother, the house had seemed like a dream come true.

By day, the fanciful cupolas and explosion of gingerbread trim at every edge held their own drab charm. The paint was faded and curling, some of the pieces missing or sagging, but it was still possible to envision what it could become.

Though at night, the house loomed dark and forbidding, its narrow spires rising like daggers through the blowing snow, its windows black and empty.

She parked the car in the garage and scurried across the yard to the broad wraparound porch.

With cold fingers she fumbled her key into the front door lock, then let herself inside and flipped on the vestibule lights with a sigh of relief.

After tapping in her security code on the panel next to the front closet, she bumped the thermostat up to sixty-five and shucked off her boots and coat.

At the sound of something thundering down the curving, open staircase ahead, she grinned and crouched down. “Hey, Badger!”

Twenty pounds of sinuous fur launched out of the shadows and into her arms, nearly knocking her flat. “Pretty kitty,” she crooned, staggering upright with the cat slung over her shoulder. “Weird, but pretty. Have you been a good boy?”

On her way to the kitchen she flipped on the lights in the parlor, where the plants were all still upright in their pots.

And in the library, where she noticed with some relief that the flower arrangement on the coffee table—courtesy of her office nurse, in honor of Jill’s thirty-third birthday last week—was still arranged properly in its vase.

“Wow,” she murmured, pulling the cat away from her shoulder to look into his face. “Apparently you were still tired from the last time I left.”

He gave her a baleful look and wiggled until she put him on the floor, then stalked over to his empty food dish and lashed his plume of a tail, clearly put out by the delay.

She took a can of his favorite cat food from the cupboard and stirred in some dry kitty kibble, filled his water dish—from which he would drink only if it was full—then reopened the fridge and studied the contents.

Once upon a time, there’d been a hearty stock of provisions in there for the dinners she and Grant had prepared together. Now, the thought of cooking just made her tired. Straightening, she foraged in the freezer for a low-fat packaged dinner and tossed the first one she found into the microwave without bothering to read the label.

A chill swept through the kitchen, so heavy with sadness that she spun around, half expecting to see an apparition standing behind her.

No one was there. Nothing stirred, except the languid lashing of Badger’s tail as he chowed down on his dinner.

You’re imagining things again.

The security system was new, state of the art, and the house was surely secure. Still, uneasy, she slowly retraced her steps and cautiously peered into the library.

The old chandelier suspended from the pressed-tin ceiling bathed the center of the room in soft light, but left the corners in darkness. She sensed nothing amiss.

Reassured, she laughed at her overactive imagination as she moved to the parlor and rested a hand on the heavy, carved mahogany trim of the archway. Here, too, the soft light of an antique chandelier shadowed the nooks and crannies.

Though the house had been sold unfurnished, she and Grant had found some delightful old pieces up in the attic. A turn-of-the-century sewing machine with cast-iron filigree legs. An old, painted fern pedestal, which she’d refinished to its original deep-oak beauty. A warped rocking chair that—after a trip to a furniture repair shop—now fit nicely at the bay window overlooking the side garden.

They’d put all of the original pieces they’d found into this room, and then she’d added an old, towering secretary, intricately carved, and a lovely old oriental rug in deep jewel tones.

She stilled. When had she moved the rocker to the room’s front windows?

Her heart skipped a beat as she stared at it.

Almost imperceptibly, it appeared to be moving…as in those final, slow moments after someone has gotten up and walked away.

You really need more sleep. Next, you’ll be seeing apparitions in the hallway, and bogeymen in your closet.

It was only the wind, of course. Drafts found their way into the old house whenever the wind blew outside.

A faint sound echoed down the shotgun hallway leading to the front entry. She looked down, surprised to see her hands clenched.