Lucy and The Lieutenant. Helen Lacey
white jacket. Her hair was down, flowing over her shoulders in a way that immediately got his attention.
“You’re late,” he said, grinning fractionally.
“I’ve been here for ages,” she replied and crossed her arms, swinging her tote so hard it hit him on the behind. “Oh, sorry,” she said breathlessly and then smiled. “The ambulance is about to leave, so we should get going.”
Brant rattled his keys. “Okay.”
It was cold out, but at least the snow had stopped falling and the roads were being cleared.
“Once you’ve finished renovating the Loose Moose,” she said when they reached his truck and he opened the creaky passenger door, “you might want to consider giving this old girl an overhaul.”
Brant waited until she was inside and grabbed the door. “Are you dissing my ride?”
She laughed. “Absolutely.”
He shut the door and walked around the front. “That’s cruel,” he said once he slid in behind the wheel and started the engine. “I’ve had this truck since I was sixteen.”
“I know,” she said, and fiddled with the Saint Christopher magnet stuck on the dash. “You bought it off Mitch Culhane for two hundred bucks.”
Brant laughed, thinking about how Grady had gone ballistic when he’d come home with the old truck that was blowing black smoke from the exhaust. The truck hadn’t really been worth a damn back then, but he’d fixed it up some over the years. “How do you know that?”
She shrugged. “I think Brooke told me. We’re friends, remember?”
He nodded. “I know that. She’s another fan of yours.”
“Another?”
“My mom,” he replied, smirking a little. “Patron Saint Lucia.”
Her eyes flashed. “How do you know my real name?” she asked as if it was something she didn’t like.
“I think Brooke told me,” he said then shrugged. “We’re family...remember?”
“Funny guy,” she quipped sweetly. “And I didn’t think the Parkers and Culhanes were friends.”
“Grady and I used to get into some scrapes with the Culhane brothers,” he admitted wryly. “But since we shared a mutual dislike of the O’Sullivans we were friends more often than not.”
“He still shouldn’t have sold you this crappy old truck,” she said. “You took Trudy Perkins to prom in it.”
That’s not all he’d done with Trudy on prom night, he thought, but he wasn’t about to say that to the woman beside him. Trudy had been the wildest girl in their grade back then. And she’d had him wrapped around her little finger. He’d been a typical teenage boy and at the time Trudy had been his every fantasy.
But he’d changed. He didn’t want that now. He wanted...well, he didn’t have a damned clue what he wanted. All he knew was that there was nothing crass or easy about Lucy. She was kind and innocent. The kind of girl his mother approved of. Hell, the kind of girl his mother kept pushing him toward.
“I wonder what happened to Trudy,” he said as he drove from the parking lot.
“She lives in Oregon. She married some rich banker and had three kids. I guess she could be divorced by now.”
Brant glanced sideways. “How do you know this stuff?”
She shrugged. “I’m a doctor. People tell me things.”
“Clearly.”
“Except you wouldn’t, right?” she said and leaned back in the seat. “You keep everything to yourself.”
“Not everything.”
“Everything,” she said again. “Say, if I asked you what you were doing talking with Parker enemy number one, Liam O’Sullivan, the other night, you’d shrug those broad shoulders of yours and say it was just business.”
“Well, it was.”
She laughed softly and the sound hit him in the solar plexus. “When everyone knows he’s trying to buy you out because he hates the idea of competition.”
“Everyone knows that, do they?”
“Sure. He told Kayla and Kayla told me.”
“Kayla?” he inquired. “That’s your friend with the supermodel looks?”
“The one in the same. Every man notices Kayla. She’s the original blonde bombshell.”
Brant made a small grunting sound. “I’ve always preferred brunettes myself.”
She glanced at him and then looked to the road ahead. “Could have fooled me.”
Brant bit back a smile. “It’s true.”
“Trudy was blond,” she said, frowning a little. “Remember?”
“She was brunette,” he replied. “Trudy dyed her hair.”
She snorted. “I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the only fake part.”
Brant wasn’t one to kiss and tell, but the disapproval in Lucy’s voice about the other woman’s surgically enhanced attributes made him smile. “You could be right.”
Lucy Monero had a habit of doing that. Whatever transpired between them, however much he desired her, wanted her, imagined kissing her, there was something else going on, too. Because he liked her. She was sweet and funny and good to be around. A balm for a weary soul. Something he could get used to, if he’d let himself. Not that he would.
“Incidentally,” he said, speaking without his usual reserve. “Don’t confuse my reluctance for disinterest.”
“You really do talk in riddles sometimes,” she said and then gave a soft laugh. “But I least I have you talking.”
She did. In fact, he’d done a whole lot more talking with Lucy than he had with anyone outside his mother and brother and Uncle Joe for the past six months. “Communicating is important to you, isn’t it?”
“People are important to me.”
“I guess they have to be, considering your profession. Is that why you chose to become a doctor?”
She didn’t answer and he glanced toward her and saw her gaze was downcast. She was thinking, remembering. Lost in some secret world of her own for a moment. She looked beautiful and just a little sad.
“No,” she said finally. “It was because of my mom.”
Brant could vaguely recall Katie Monero. She’d spoken with an Irish brogue and had taught dance lessons at the studio above the bakery in town. She’d married an Irish/Italian rancher who’d had no idea about cattle and horses, and who had died when Lucy was an adolescent. The crash that had taken her mother’s life a few years later was a tragic accident. Katie had lost control of her car while a seventeen-year-old Lucy had dozed beside her. Katie had been flung from the car and Lucy had survived with barely a scratch.
“Because of the accident? It wasn’t your fault, though.”
“No,” she said and sighed. “But my mom was alive for over ten minutes before the paramedics arrived. I didn’t know what to do. I went numb. If I had put pressure on the main wound she might have had a chance. But I didn’t know...and I vowed I’d never be in that position again. So I decided to go to medical school and become a doctor. I wanted to know that if I was ever in that position again that I would be able to do things differently.”
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