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“Darin said I’d find you here.” The voice startled him. Turning, Grant almost dropped his tablet.
“Wow!” He’d said the word out loud before realizing he was doing so. In a pair of tight black jeans, high-heeled black leather sandals and a button-down, tapered white blouse, Lynn looked…nothing like a nurse. Her hair, loose and curling around her shoulders, was longer than he’d suspected. She was wearing makeup.
And not meeting his eyes as she handed him a manila folder. “This is the signed letter with our nonprofit tax ID that should be all your vendors need for their donations,” she said, her tone unusually subdued.
She seemed to be looking right through him. Or over him.
Taking the folder, Grant wanted to touch her hand. Her face. To bring her back to him. She was at the Stand for a reason. Had left her job at the hospital to live here.
Because she’d been abused? He knew for certain she’d been wearing a wedding ring four years before. He’d checked. He didn’t ever flirt or even think about flirting with another man’s wife.
Her fingers were unadorned now.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have sounded so surprised,” he said, making certain that he didn’t touch her at all. “I’ve just never seen you out of uniform.”
He’d begun to picture her wearing her various colored and designed scrubs to bed. Only the top. With nothing on beneath it.
Because he was certain he hadn’t misread those looks—the way she’d licked her lips…the softer, sexy tone she used a time or two….
“I had a fundraising lunch,” she said. “It was outdoors, on a patio at a country club, and part of the program was a fashion show. I agreed to be a model and they gifted me the clothes as long as I wore them through lunch. We not only raised enough money to keep us going here for a month, but the fashion designer donated makeup and an outfit for each one of our residents.”
Noticing that it was almost time for Darin’s therapy session to end, he closed his tablet, latched his tape measure back onto his black leather belt and tucked the folder she’d walked all the way out there to give him under his arm.
She’d walked all the way out here, dressed like that, to give him a folder she could have left for him someplace. She could have texted or called to tell him to pick it up at the front office.
She’d wanted him to see her.
“How many residents are currently living at the Stand?” he asked, treading carefully as he walked with her back toward the main house.
She was attracted. And afraid? Not a combination he’d ever dealt with before.
“Two hundred and forty-two. We’re almost maxed out at the moment. But Lila’s working on a deal that would include enough new bungalows to allow us to take in another fifty.” The voice of a woman who didn’t sound the least bit fearful.
Because when she was a nurse, she was in her element? Secure and confident?
Living with Darin had made him more sensitive to the fact that people behaved differently in different circumstances.
“Is there some kind of a time limit for how long someone can live here?” he asked, partially to keep her comfortable, but also because he was growing more and more curious about this aspect of life that he’d, thankfully, never been exposed to before.
His dad had adored his mother. He’d revered her. And so had her sons.
Apparently, the world was also filled with jackasses who didn’t cherish the women in their lives. He’d known there were some…but two hundred and forty-two right here in Santa Raquel? The town wasn’t that big.
“Not in terms of a number of days or weeks or months,” she said, answering his question. “A few of us, like Maddie and me, are paid employees and live here full-time as part of our jobs,” she said.
“I thought Maddie was a resident who donated her skills while she was here.” She’d told him before that much of the general running of the place—the cooking, cleaning, laundry and even a lot of the computer and office work—was handled by residents.
“She was, when she originally came to us,” Lynn said. “Maddie’s situation was different, and it suited everyone best if she stayed on. But the idea here is to help these women heal, inside and out, to prepare them for happy healthy futures as they resume their lives. We’re a hideaway, but the only thing we hide our residents from is the wrongful abuse. Otherwise, our goal is to prepare them to face the world, not hide from it. These women and their children have loved ones. Jobs and schools and friends and lives. We want them to be able to live those lives. Or, if they choose, to start new ones.”
