Springtime at Hope Cottage

Definitely not in Kansas anymore.

Or, in Josie Kellum’s case, New York City. She’d barely stepped off the jet bridge and into the airport before she’d realized she was in for a culture shock. And that was saying a lot, considering her home state was a proud blend of people from around the world. All cultures and people except perhaps the sort that lived deep in the mountains of North Carolina.

Readjusting the carry-on bag on her shoulder, Josie weaved her way toward Baggage Claim. Just looking around, she could guess who the locals were, arriving back home from their travels. They didn’t seem to be in a rush to go anywhere unlike the travelers she’d seen just a couple of hours ago at LaGuardia Airport. Even now, Josie was rushing, though her flight had landed early, and for the first time in ages, she wasn’t chasing a deadline.

She stopped at Baggage Claim and retrieved her brightly colored luggage.

Understandably, her best friend, Kaitlyn Russo, couldn’t meet her here today. Kaitlyn ran a successful bed and breakfast, which demanded someone always be there to play hostess. When Josie had assured Kaitlyn she could grab a cab to Sweetwater Springs, Kaitlyn had only laughed.

“A forty-five-minute drive will cost you those red-soled shoes you love so much.”

“Christian Louboutins,” Josie corrected. “And they’re more than shoes.” They were one of her only indulgences. “So I’ll just rent a car, then.”

“When was the last time you actually drove a car, Jo?”

Kaitlyn raised a good point. Josie took public transportation everywhere she went. She didn’t own a car, and she’d never driven one down the side of a mountain.

“Don’t worry,” Kaitlyn told her. “I’ll find someone to pick you up. Mitch has a friend that drives that way all the time. Maybe he can swing by and drive you in.”

Mitch’s friend. That was the extent of Josie’s knowledge on who she was looking for right now as she scanned the surrounding area. There were a few people standing against the wall near Baggage Claim. An older man with white hair. A middle-aged guy in a uniform of some sort. Maybe Josie should’ve thought to make a sign to hold up that read MITCH’S FRIEND.

As she was pondering what to do next, someone grabbed her left shoulder. Reflexively, Josie whirled around, catching one heel of her Christian Louboutins on the wheel of her rolling luggage. She tried to steady herself with the handle but it retracted with her quick movement.

Am I being mugged? Her gaze darted to her checked laptop bag as she stumbled. Luckily the front flap was still open from where she’d grabbed a breath mint earlier. Grabbing her can of pepper spray, she righted her body and met two darker-than-night eyes cast in a tanned, angular face. The man had shoulder-length, silky black hair, and he was, for lack of a better word—which was saying a lot for a journalist—gorgeous.

She held up the spray, targeting the man’s face. She’d purchased the can after taking a self-defense class recently. It’d been research for an article that her new boss had shot down with sniper efficiency, saying it wasn’t sexy enough. What did Bart know though? Protection in all senses of the word was very sexy.

“Whoa!” Her attacker took several steps backward and held up his hands. “What are you doing?”

“Defending myself. You grabbed me from behind.”

His brows gathered. He could be a model. He didn’t need to attack innocent women if he was struggling financially. This guy was far better looking than some of the models in the popular magazine that she worked for.

“I didn’t grab you from behind. I tapped your shoulder…Are you Kaitlyn’s friend?”

Josie swallowed hard. “Are you…Mitch’s friend?”

He gave a small nod before glancing back down at the pepper spray still primed at his face.

“Don’t you know you’re not supposed to touch strangers without a proper greeting?” she asked, shoving her can into her luggage. “That’ll get you killed in some places.”

“And evidently blinded here,” he muttered, rolling out his shoulders. “No good deed goes unpunished.”

Josie cringed. “I’m sorry. I just…I was expecting you to be holding a sign and standing over there.” She gestured toward the small group of people along the wall.

The man followed her gaze. “Okay. Any other expectations I should know about?” he asked, looking back at her. “Because I happen to like my eyes. I prefer to keep them.”

She kind of liked his eyes too. And his face. His skin was a perfect bronze color, which, coupled with his high cheekbones, made her suspect that he had American Indian heritage. “Um, no. Well, yes. I guess we should make proper introductions since we’ll be spending the next forty-five minutes in your vehicle together.” She held out her hand. “I’m Josie Kellum. Aka Kaitlyn’s friend.”

He took her hand, and a shock wave of warm tingles slid up her fingers and down her spine. “Tuck Locklear. Mitch’s friend.” He looked down at her luggage. “I’d like to help you with your bags, if that’s okay.”

Her cheeks flared hot. “Um, yes. That would be great. Thank you.”

Way to go, Josie. She tended to get a little high-strung after pulling several late-nighters in a row. It was a combination of not enough sleep, too much caffeine, and too little human interaction. She’d needed to finish up edits on a few articles before this trip though. That way she could relax a little bit and let her hair down, so to speak. There was also her overactive imagination, a hazard of being a writer, that had made her leap from an uninvited touch to the assumption that she was being mugged.

Tuck led her to a blue Jeep Wrangler Sahara in the parking lot and loaded her luggage into the back while she climbed into the passenger seat, where a large chocolate Lab lifted her head from the floorboard behind her.

“Oh, hi there. And who are you?” she asked, turning to pet the dog’s head.

Tuck climbed into the driver’s seat. “This is Shadow,” he told her before addressing the dog. “Lie down.”

Shadow looked at Josie once more and then did as Tuck asked.

Josie noticed the dog’s harness read THERAPY DOG in large block letters. She wondered why Tuck needed one, but considering they’d only just met and she’d already tried to single-handedly blind him, it was probably best not to pry. “Thank you again for picking me up,” she said, facing forward and pulling on her seat belt.

“It’s not a problem.”

She waited for him to say more. When he didn’t, she filled the silence with the next obvious question. “So, what do you do?”

“Do?” He glanced over.

“For a living. I’m the executive editor for the lifestyle section of Loving Life magazine.”

Work was always her crutch in social situations. Other people tended to tell tales of their latest vacation. Or they whipped out pictures of their significant other or their pair of angelic-looking kids. Some even had cute, far-too-spoiled dogs that they showed off proudly on their cell phones. Everyone had someone, even Lisa Loner, the woman who’d been dubbed the office’s wallflower. Just last week, Josie had been cornered by Lisa in the hall while going for her third cup of coffee. Lisa had been bubbling with excitement to show off her new engagement ring and tell the dramatic story of how the guy she’d just met had proposed.

Even though Josie was skeptical of the whirlwind relationship, she also found herself feeling a void in some way. She’d chosen her career over chasing dreams of romance and a family of her own. A successful career is what she’d always wanted but somehow, lately, it didn’t seem to be enough.

“I do physical therapy,” Tuck said.

“Oh.” Josie looked over, trying to fit her driver into the mold of all the physical therapists she’d met before. Most of them were clean-cut ex-jocks wearing khakis and polo shirts. Although handsome, Tuck had hair that scraped along the tops of his shoulders and his muscles were lean rather than bulky. He wore a relaxed pair of jeans and a gray T-shirt. “Kaitlyn said you come this way often. Do you work at a hospital nearby?” she asked.

“There you go with those expectations again.” A smile lifted his defined cheeks. “No, I see patients in the wild, meaning at their homes, out in public, and sometimes literally in the woods. It’s more natural than using exercise machines in an air-conditioned building with a TV mounted on the wall.”

“Sounds interesting,” she said, keeping to herself the fact that, if she were a patient, she’d prefer the machines and daytime television.

“Shadow is my partner. She works alongside me most of the time.”

Hearing her name, the Lab lifted her head once more.

Josie was about to pet her but then pulled her hand away. She’d written an article on canine-assisted therapy once. There were rules about socializing with the dogs.

“It’s okay,” Tuck said. “Shadow isn’t working right now.”

“Oh. Good.” Josie moved her hand and petted the top of Shadow’s head. She was soft and leaned into Josie’s touch. “What a good girl you are.” Even though the dog wasn’t working right now, Josie felt herself immediately relax.

Then her cell phone dinged loudly from her purse. She faced forward, pulled the phone out, and checked the caller ID. Her stress level immediately jumped right back up—both because work was a major stressor these days and because she’d taken that moment to glance out her window at the steep drop of the mountainside.

She turned away from the window only to lay eyes on her driver, which spiked her blood pressure for a whole different reason.

Tuck knew the type. Work obsessed, self-absorbed, and judging by her luggage and fancy leather purse, materialistic.

Not his type.

He listened as Josie talked on the phone, suddenly sounding firm and a tad bossy. His own phone vibrated in the middle console. He shifted his gaze for just a second as he navigated down the mountain. Sweetwater Springs was only another ten miles away, and he couldn’t get his passenger to her destination soon enough.

Tuck recognized the number on his caller ID as the same one that had called earlier in the day. A Beverly Sanders had left a message asking him to call her back. He hadn’t yet. He wondered if the woman was a prospective patient. If so, she should’ve called his office number. He had a secretary that he shared with the local home-health occupational and speech therapists in Sweetwater Springs. Only current patients got his cell number, and only to use during emergencies.

After a moment, his phone dinged with another voicemail. He’d check it later. Right now, his passenger was still talking on her own phone.

“All right, Dana. Yeah. I’ll take care of it…I know I’m on vacation but this can’t wait. Uh-huh. Bye.” Josie clicked a button on her phone and placed it on her lap.

From the corner of his eye, Tuck caught her looking at him. She opened her mouth to speak. Can’t we just ride in silence the rest of the way?

“So, Kaitlyn and Mitch are happy, huh?” she said.

Tuck gave a small nod. “Mitch is happier than I’ve seen him in a long time.” And Mitch deserved it after all his years of running from the ghosts of his past. Tuck, on the other hand, was faced with his late wife’s ghost every day. Even now, after moving to a new home on Blueberry Creek last winter, Renee seemed to be everywhere.

His fingers gripped the steering wheel tightly as he refocused on Josie.

“Kaitlyn seems happy too,” she said. “I miss her back home in New York. We used to have lunch together at least once a week.”

Tuck guessed that Josie had to schedule those lunch dates in her calendar. She probably had to schedule her showers too.

And he shouldn’t be thinking about her in the shower. While they might not have clicked personality-wise, her looks hadn’t gone unnoticed. Although a widower, he was still a red-blooded male who hadn’t had sex in over two years. Josie had long, blond hair that was pulled back in a tight ponytail at her nape. Her skin was smooth and creamy. When she’d captured his attention with a can of pepper spray primed at his face, he’d stared at her long enough to see that her eyes were almost a turquoise blue.

Her phone made a ridiculous, high-pitched meow from her lap.

Shadow stood at attention in the back seat and gave a soft woof.

“Sorry. That’s just a text message alert,” she told Shadow. “I don’t have any cats stowed away with me—I promise.” She read the text and started laughing to herself.

In contrast to the meow, this was a pleasant sound. Tuck caught himself smiling for a moment.

Then Josie’s phone meowed again. And again. It continued to meow while her fingers tapped along the screen rapidly in response until he turned his Jeep onto Mistletoe Lane where the Sweetwater Bed and Breakfast was located.

He pulled into the driveway of the two-story Victorian house that his friend Mitch and his fiancée, Kaitlyn, had inherited last October and parked. “This is it.”

“Wow.” Josie stared out his windshield at the inn for a moment. “I can’t believe Kaitlyn owns this place. It’s amazing.”

“You should see the inside. She’s a talented interior designer.”

Josie turned to him. “She’s the best at everything she does, including being a friend.”

The warmth in her voice and her eyes intrigued him. Maybe there was more to her than fancy clothes and luggage. Not that it mattered.

Tuck looked away to keep from staring. “I’ll, uh, get your bags and help you in.” He hopped out and walked around to the back of the Jeep.

Josie was standing beside him before he knew it with her laptop bag thrown over her shoulder along with that expensive-looking purse. “I got it,” she said. “Thanks again for the ride.”

Without waiting for him to respond, she grabbed the handle of her luggage from his hand and smiled up at him. Fresh faced and beautiful. She didn’t wear a lot of makeup, which was a quality he liked about a woman.

“You sure? I don’t mind,” he said.

“Positive.” She held out her other hand.

“What’s that?” He looked down at the folded cash in her palm.

“For your troubles.”

He lifted his gaze to those turquoise eyes. “I’m not a cabdriver, and it wasn’t any trouble.”

She tilted her head to one side, revealing the delicious curve where her neck met her shoulder. “I know, but you didn’t have to go out of your way for me.”

If he couldn’t tell by looking at her, this would have given away the fact that she wasn’t from around here. People in Sweetwater Springs didn’t mind helping each other out. It was one of the things he appreciated about his hometown. He’d seen the stark contrast of other communities when he’d gone away to college, first for his bachelor’s degree and then for his doctorate of physical therapy. As far as he knew, there was no other town quite like this one, which was why he was never leaving again.

He pushed her money toward her, his hand sweeping over hers in an unexpected touch. Her skin was soft, and he didn’t pull away immediately.

Josie’s eyes widened just a fraction, and something buzzed between them. Whatever it was, it was unwelcome.

“Josie, you made it!” Kaitlyn called out as she headed down the porch steps of the house.

Josie turned her attention to Kaitlyn, and both women squealed with delight. Tuck imagined that Shadow was standing at alert in the back seat again, his cue to get back in the Jeep and leave.

“Thank you, Tuck!” Kaitlyn called.

“No problem.” He waved and quickly shut the door behind him, barring any further encounters he might have with Josie. Besides, he was running late for dinner with his friend Alex Baker, the police chief in Sweetwater Springs. Before going to the Tipsy Tavern, however, he needed to drop Shadow off at home.

Tuck was almost to his cottage on Blueberry Creek when his phone started to ring. The caller ID showed the same number that had called before. That woman was bent on talking to him tonight. He moved to connect the call and find out why but stopped short when he heard a high-pitched meowing from the passenger seat. It meowed a second time, and Tuck couldn’t help grinning. Josie Kellum was undoubtedly losing her mind right about now.

He parked in his driveway and commanded Shadow to follow him into the backyard. Then he returned to his Jeep and wavered only momentarily on which direction to drive. Back to the inn to return Josie’s cell phone or to his dinner destination? He couldn’t keep the chief of Sweetwater Springs police waiting, now could he?

There was something about Josie Kellum that left him unnerved and restless; he didn’t want to see her again tonight. Besides, maybe it would do her good to disconnect from her busy city life for just a while longer.