Firefighter With A Frozen Heart. Dianne Drake

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      “Then I’ll see you later on, with a big appetite,” Julie said, standing to leave. “So, if I may ask, when are you due?”

      Edie instinctively laid her hand on her belly. “Another month. A little girl. Do you have any children?” she asked.

      “No. Never been married, never been a mom. I’m more of the career type, I think.”

      “I was the career type, too, and look at me now.” She glanced again at Molly’s picture, then the one of the three of them—her, Rafe and Molly. “I’m into family in a huge way, and loving every minute of it. It’s everything I never knew I wanted,” Edie said, laughing. “And I wouldn’t have my life any other way.”

      There was a time she’d thought that, too. But then she’d been a kid with enormous, romantic delusions. Luckily, she’d grown up. A little of it the hard way, maybe. She’d learned her lessons well, though, in large part thanks to Grace Corbett. “Well, I’d better get back to work. So I’ll see you later, Edie,” she said from the hall. Turning, she hurried back to the emergency department, where she was responsible for more things than she’d ever thought she’d be responsible for. Thanks, in part, to Grace Corbett, too. Actually, thanks in full, since it was Grace’s benevolence that had made paramedic training first, then nursing school afterward, possible.

      “Looks like we’re feeding an army tonight,” Jess commented on his way into the dining room. The spaghetti bowl in the center of the kitchen table was heaped to overflowing, and the bread plate had enough garlic bread piled on to feed half the population of Lilly Lake. It reminded him of coming home to Aunt Grace for a meal.

      “Uncle Jess!” Molly squealed, launching herself into his arms with such a force it nearly toppled him over backward. “I’ve been waiting for you to come visit us. I have a new pony … actually, I have two ponies now. Lucky, my old pony, and she’s not really that old. Johnny says she’s about two, so that really makes her my new pony, since Snowflake, my new pony, is really about six, which makes her my old pony.”

      “Whoa, slow down,” Jess said, laughing. “You’re talking too fast, and I can’t keep up. So, your old pony has a new pony, and Lucky Snowflake is who?” he teased.

      “Lucky is my pony, and so is Snowflake, silly,” Molly replied.

      “Oh, now I get it. You have two ponies. Lucky is one, Snowflake Silly is the other.”

      “Not Snowflake Silly,” she said. “His name is Snowflake.”

      “Didn’t you tell me his name was Snowflake Silly? I’m positive that’s what I heard.” He looked at Rafe for support. “Isn’t that what she said? Snowflake Silly?”

      Rafe smiled, threw his hands into the air in surrender and backed away. “I’m leaving this one up to you two while I go help my lovely wife toss the salad.” With that, he backed all the way into the kitchen, stopping short of Edie, who was wielding a large butcher’s knife, going at the lettuce with a vengeance. “It really is a lot of food,” he commented offhandedly.

      “I invited someone else this evening,” she said, eyeing a big, juicy red tomato for her next chopping chore. “Someone from the hospital.”

      “Anybody I know?”

      “Maybe. She’s fairly new on staff. Very nice. Originally from Lilly Lake, so you might know her. Her name’s Julie Clark.”

      Rafe, who had picked up a carrot to munch, nearly choked. “Well, this ought to be interesting.” “How so?”

      “Julie and Jess have history.” “What kind of history?” “Big history.” He patted his wife’s belly. “You’re kidding. They were …?” He shook his head. “False alarm. But it had us all going for a while.”

      “So, what should we do? I don’t want either of them being uncomfortable. Especially not Jess, with everything he’s been through—a war, the death of his fiancée, a career change.”

      Rafe gave his wife an affectionate kiss on the cheek.

      “Well, I’m sure eating spaghetti with a former girlfriend will shrink in comparison to all that.”

      “You may be a great doctor, but you’re not so smart about relationships, are you?”

      “I get ours right, don’t I?”

      “You get ours perfect. But we don’t have history … torrid history.”

      “I didn’t say it was torrid.”

      “No, but …” She patted her own belly. “That sure implies it, don’t you think? Anyway, he’s here and Julie’s down at the stable, talking to Johnny, so she’ll be up in a few minutes. And you, my dear husband, are in charge of dealing with the situation.”

      Rafe shrugged, then gave over to a smile. “Like I said, could be interesting. Jess needs something to shake him up, and Julie might be it.”

      “What might be it?” Jess asked from the doorway.

      “This might be it,” Edie hedged, holding up her butcher knife. “The best one I own. This one might be … it.”

      Jess gave them both a half smile. “Domesticity has really dulled you two down, hasn’t it?” he asked. “So much ado about a knife?”

      “Hey, little brother. Believe me when I tell you there’s nothing dull in this house. In fact, I think you’re about to find out just how un-dull Gracie House is going to be.”

      “What’s that supposed to mean?”

      “Me, Jess. I think Rafe’s referring to the two of us having dinner together.” Julie looked at Edie. “Molly let me in, by the way. Hope that was okay? Oh, and I brought non-alcoholic sparkling grape juice. Knew you couldn’t do wine, but I thought this might go well with the spaghetti.” She held the two bottles out to Edie, but Jess was the one who took them and marched straight to the refrigerator on the other side of the room—as far away from Julie as anyone in the kitchen could get without opening the back door and continuing on into the yard.

      “Thank you. So, I take it you and Jess remember each other?” Edie asked, with a sly wink at Rafe.

      “Actually, we had the chance to catch up with each other just a few days ago … in New York,” Julie said. She was clearly not as uncomfortable as Jess was at this meeting. If anything, she was almost too noncommittal. Trying too hard to stay unaffected. “In the back of my ambulance. He was my very last patient as a paramedic.”

      “So, that’s how it was. Jess was your patient.” He arched an amused eyebrow at his brother. “Bet he wasn’t a very good one, was he?”

      “No, he wasn’t.”

      “Did you have to strap him down?”

      “Do you two realize I’m standing right here?” Jess cut in.

      “Sure we do, little brother. But since you’re not contributing to the conversation—”

      “Look,” Julie interrupted. СКАЧАТЬ