Laurie Paige – The One And Only (страница 4)

The owner, Amelia Miller, called out a greeting upon seeing Shelby. “How did your day go with the kids?”

“Fine but tiring,” Shelby admitted. She chose a glass of iced wine cooler and a plate of fruit, cheese and veggies, then sat at a table for two overlooking the back garden. “You must have a green thumb,” she told her landlady when she stopped by the table.

“Nope, a dedicated gardener. I can do okay with African violets, but that’s my limit.”

“Join me if you have a moment,” Shelby invited.

Amelia nodded. “Let me refill the fruit tray, then I will.” She dashed off to the nether regions of the large Victorian that had been converted to a bed-and-breakfast.

Shelby watched the shadows lengthen over the lovely landscape. In the carriage house or barn or whatever it was behind the main house, she could see several people moving around. They appeared to be couples. Were they dancing?

Amelia returned with a glass of red wine. “Whew, I must be getting old or people are eating more. It’s harder to keep up nowadays.”

Since Amelia looked no more than a couple of years older than she was, Shelby ignored the age remark. She grimaced ruefully. “According to all reports, Americans are eating more.”

“So how was your first day, really?” Amelia asked. “Did Beau Dalton give you a hard time? Did you get heart palpitations as all the local gals do around the Daltons?”

Her laughter was so merry that Shelby had to laugh, too. “He is good-looking, but he was also professional.”

“Ah, yes. All the Daltons are dedicated to their jobs.”

Shelby, not knowing the family, didn’t comment. Instead she said, “He offered me a job in his office.”

“Did he? I suppose he could use more help. He has a nurse practitioner who’s also a midwife—she sees her own patients—and a receptionist who keeps the books, but he probably needs someone to assist him. It’s difficult to get help in a small town.”

“Hmm,” Shelby said noncommittally. “Has he been in business here long?”

“Before July he kept office hours in town, going from once to twice a week during the past year, but his main office was in the city. Last month he made the shift to here full time.”

Shelby had learned “the city” referred to Boise, which was over an hour’s drive south of the valley. “I see. Did he buy out another doctor’s practice?”

“No. Doc Barony died about ten years ago.”

Shelby knew Beau was too young to have had a practice there very long, but she’d hoped he had taken over another’s patients. That way, there might have been records going back several years, maybe to her birth.

“The house had been empty until Beau started up an office and brought in the midwife,” Amelia continued.

“The house?” Shelby asked, not sure what her landlady was talking about.

“Beau’s office. It belonged to the old doctor. The attic is still full of records, the receptionist said. She’s afraid the ceiling is going to fall in on her head.”

A jolt of excitement shot straight through Shelby. Records! Just what she wanted to get her hands on. But how?

Amelia finished her wine and stood. “Well, back to work. I see a new family arriving. How do you like your room? It’s rather small, so I worry about claustrophobia.”

“I love it,” Shelby assured the other woman, who had lovely auburn hair with golden highlights and a charming amount of natural curl, unlike her own flaming-red, string-straight locks that had been the scourge of her life.

With a satisfied nod, Amelia left. Shelby at once reverted to her own mission. If only she could accept Beau’s offer of a job. No, she already had too much to do. Maybe she could volunteer to sort through the old records, keeping the ones for current patients.

Why would anyone in her right mind volunteer for such a job? She couldn’t come up with a good reason.

A tall, masculine figure with dark hair and a smooth stride crossed a flagstone path, heading for the door near her table. Her heart gave an unexpected skip-thump-skip-thump before settling down when she realized the man was a stranger, one who looked awfully like Beau Dalton.

He paused as if hearing something, then turned, waiting for a lovely woman to catch up with him. She came from the carriage house, where, Shelby assumed, the man had also been. The door opened, admitting the couple and a wave of August air, hot and dusty to the senses.

Meeting the man’s eyes, she saw they were as blue as the early evening sky. He had to be one of the infamous Daltons that Amelia had mentioned. He gave her a smile and nod. The blonde on his arm glanced her way.

“Are you the new school nurse?” she asked.

“Why, yes,” Shelby said, unable to hide her surprise.

The young woman, about Shelby’s age, held out a hand. “I’m Honey Dalton. This is Zack. Beau has mentioned working with you. Zack and Beau are cousins.”

“I’m Shelby Wheeling.” Shelby shook hands with both of them, giving Zack a wry smile. “You and your cousin look enough alike to be twins.”

That brought a ripple of laughter from the couple. “We have those in the family, too,” he explained. “My younger brothers are twins.”

“Do they look like you and Dr. Dalton, too?”

“They do,” Honey told her. “Get the four of them together and even I get confused.”

“Yeah? Just don’t let me catch you making out with one of the others,” Zack threatened.

Noting their wedding rings and the easy air between them, Shelby concluded they were husband and wife. “Is something going on in the carriage house?” she asked, curious about the couples she saw leaving.

Honey nodded. “I’m holding dance classes there. That was the Wednesday afternoon couples class. Ballroom and modern dance. We would love to have you join us.”

Shelby didn’t know what to say.

“I need a partner,” Zack assured her. “My wife dances with all the other men on the pretext of showing them what to do and how to hold their partners. I end up standing by the wall most of the time.”

“Uh, thanks, but I think I’d better get settled in a bit more first. You wouldn’t happen to know of any apartments for rent, would you?”

Honey was sympathetic. “It’s hard to find a rental in a small place like this. However, there’s a cottage by the lake next to the resort property,” she said with a tentative glance at her husband.

“It’s for sale, not rent,” he reminded her.

“I was wondering if they might rent it while waiting for a buyer. You know the owner. Think you could ask him?”

Shelby perked up at this news. The only available apartment in town had been over a gas station and totally unacceptable in terms of cleanliness, repairs and general livability. The extremely low rent had been its only redeeming feature.

“No problem. I’ll let you know,” he told Shelby.

“Thanks. Would you leave word with Amelia if I’m not in? I’ll be teaching at the high school three mornings each week when school starts, then doing nurse duty at the elementary school in the afternoons.”

“Isn’t this the loveliest place?” Honey gestured around the B and B common room. “Amelia serves the best breakfast rolls and pastries in town. Zack is a deputy with the sheriff’s department. Sometimes he claims he has to stay over in town, but I know he does it only so he can get a room here and have one of Amelia’s breakfasts.”

He laid a hand over his heart. “A man has to do his sworn duty.” In an aside, he mock-whispered to Shelby, “Honey always manages to stay over, too, and join me for breakfast and the evening snacks. She says it’s my company she misses. A likely story.”

Laughing, they bid her goodbye and went to speak to the landlady before heading out the front door.

A funny pang, part nostalgia, part yearning, filled Shelby’s chest so that it was difficult to breathe. Once she’d been like that couple—happy and confident and so very much in love, so sure of the future.

Now she could only shake her head at how naive she’d been at eighteen, fresh out of school and determined to marry her sweetheart. She hadn’t been able to imagine anything bad happening to them.

Looking out at the golden grasslands beyond the lush garden, she realized she no longer imagined anything very wonderful happening in her future.

My, how pessimistic she had grown, she chided. Expect the worst so as not to be surprised when it happened. That was her motto. She had to smile.

“I’m sorry, Miss Wheeling, the funds didn’t come through. We thought they had been promised, but someone misunderstood,” the assistant superintendent of schools explained.

It was Monday morning and Shelby had reported in for the teachers’ planning sessions at the high school, but had been referred to the superintendent’s office instead.

“So there’re no funds for a health teacher?” she repeated to make sure she understood. “What about the school nurse position in the afternoons?”

“We’re okay on that,” he assured her with a big smile. “Those funds come from a different pot.”

“I see.”

“I’m terribly sorry about all this,” he continued. “We always need substitutes. Perhaps I could put you on the list?”

“Uh, let me think about it. I’ll get back to you.” She rose when he did, obviously dismissed.

Her ears ringing with his apologies, she left the building and drove from the county seat, where the high school and administrative offices were located, to Lost Valley. Considering her savings, she had enough money to make it here for a year without working at all, but work gave her a ready cover for her covert activities.