His Shock Valentine's Proposal

“I’m not interrogating you.”

She shrugged. “I’ve told you I’ve done it a couple of times. I guess I was lucky—really there was no other choice. Dave would’ve died had I not performed it then and there.”

“You’re right. Let’s drop it.”

“Good.”

Carson turned and looked out the window, not that there was anything to see in the dark, on a logging road, in the middle of the forest, but he didn’t feel like engaging in small talk with Esme. She was maddening.

It was clear to Carson by the way she wasn’t looking at him and the way her body became tense that she wasn’t too keen on discussing the matter further. What was she hiding?

Why do you care?

Perhaps because he’d been duped by a female before.

Working at your dad’s practice sounds great! I would love to.

Then of course Danielle’s tune had changed.

This is never what I wanted. You didn’t give me much of a choice.

Not that he should care if Esme was lying to him. Let her have her secrets. It didn’t matter. They weren’t involved, they weren’t colleagues and they certainly weren’t friends. They were just two doctors in the same, sleepy small town.

That was it.

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_a998a09b-2fe1-5ce5-a12e-5c965112eb57)

ESME MANAGED TO avoid Carson for two weeks after working up on the mountain. She just decided it was in everyone’s best interest if she laid low. Less questions to be asked that way. She knew Carson didn’t believe her lies.

Great.

Why did that accident have to happen in front of Carson? She was here to be a simple physician. Not a surgeon, but then if she hadn’t been there, Dave would’ve died. He wouldn’t have made it to the hospital.

So she’d done the right thing, even if it had meant she’d had to perform a surgical procedure in front of Carson. Something she’d sworn she wasn’t going to do when she got to Crater Lake.

The best solution was to avoid Carson for a while.

Which was why Esme was standing in the produce section of a big chain grocery store two towns away, staring at a pile of cantaloupes.

Run.

That was what she was telling herself, or at least the cowardly voice in her head was telling her.

Where?

That she didn’t know. She couldn’t go home to her father. He’d made it clear that her running away was not the answer. That was what her mother had done. After Avery’s death, she’d packed up and run away.

I’ve been a wife and mother. It’s time for me. I gave up my life for you.

It had broken her father’s heart. He’d lost a son and wife in the same year.

Now a daughter.

Ever since she’d left Los Angeles her father had made it clear how disappointed he was in her, so she was the last person her father wanted to see. She was just a big failure.

“Nice melons.”

Esme shook her head and looked up to see Carson standing on the other side of the counter of cantaloupes.

“What?” she asked in disbelief.

He grinned and then rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry, it was just a joke. You were staring so intently at the produce I thought you were trying to see through it.”

Esme chuckled when she realized she had been staring at the cantaloupes for a long time. “Sorry, lost in thought. What’re you doing here? I thought you went to the co-op in Crater Lake?”

“I usually do, but I was in town visiting a friend and remembered I needed a few things.” He walked around the produce counter to stand beside her. “I thought you usually shopped locally? I didn’t even know you had a car.”

“I don’t. I took the bus down here.” She picked up a melon and sniffed it, hoping this would be the end of the conversation, that he would get the hint to walk away. Instead he lingered.

Damn. Take a hint.

Carson whistled. “That’s a pricey ticket to go grocery shopping.”

Esme shrugged. “Didn’t have a choice.”

“The local co-op is a choice.”

“The prices here are better?”

Carson smiled. “Why did you pose that in the form of a question? I doubt they’re low enough to justify the price of a bus ticket.”

“Are you really going to sit here and lecture me about my shopping habits?”

“No, but I can offer you a ride back to Crater Lake at the very least.”

Say no.

Only she couldn’t, because she really didn’t want to lug all her groceries on the passenger bus back up to Crater Lake. And after this one excursion she knew she’d either have to invest in a car or just pluck up the courage to shop at the co-op, because she obviously couldn’t avoid Carson even two towns away.

“Thanks. I appreciate that.” She pushed her shopping cart away from the melons and Carson fell into step beside her.

“I haven’t seen you around much,” Carson remarked.

“I’ve been busy.”

“I saw that Mrs. Fenolio is now one of your patients.”

Esme sighed. “Are you going to start on me about stealing your patients again?”