LITMIR.BIZ

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curtained area. “Is he going to be okay?” Isabel asked.

      “We’ll fix him right up.”

      “Thank you. I’ll wait out here.”

      “Sorry about your bees,” said Cormac O’Neill.

      “Hey, just do me a favor and don’t die, okay?” After he’d gone to an exam room, she sat down and paged through a magazine, trying to forget the encounter with Calvin Sharpe. The magazine’s pages, nervously thumbed and dog-eared, displayed articles about couples breaking up, makeovers for mudrooms, recipes calling for canned mushroom soup, how to make a skirt out of four scarves, “What To Do When He Doesn’t Notice You.” She set the magazine aside and looked around, wondering how long it took to keep a giant stranger from dying.

      She peeked at the “What To Do” article: Play up your air of mystery. Good one, she thought. There was nothing mysterious about her. She lived in the house where she’d grown up, she had a singular passion for culinary arts and teaching cookery with food from local sources, and she was following her dream. Some people claimed to be mystified by the reason she was single— “So pretty, at your age, I’ll bet the guys are flocking to you...” but there was no mystery about it. Isabel knew exactly why she was single and why she intended to stay that way.

      On one side of the waiting room was a young mother and a toddler in a food-stained onesie. The harried-looking woman was wrestling with the kid to wipe the greenish sludge from his nose. In another corner was an older woman placidly reading a library book. Isabel had spent her share of time in the clinic. When she was little, she’d come for the usual immunizations. She’d also suffered the usual childhood ordeals of bumps and bruises. A dislocated shoulder from falling out of an apple tree. A gash on her arm, sustained while climbing a barbed wire fence. A raging fever in the night from an ear infection. And through it all, one of her grandparents had always been present, soothing her with calming words.

      Later, when Bubbie fell ill, Isabel had been the one to worry and soothe, her heart breaking as she watched her grandmother getting sicker and sicker.

      Restless, she gave the article another glance. Break out of your routine. Do something unexpected. Beekeeping. That wasn’t routine, was it?

      Setting the article aside, she wandered over to a display of brochures on a variety of topics—immunization, food-borne illnesses, STDs, domestic abuse—Love isn’t supposed to hurt. She turned away, flinching at darker memories from nine years back, stirred up by the encounter with Calvin. She still remembered the night she’d driven at breakneck speed all the way from Napa, where she’d been attending cooking school. She had walked into the clinic, shaken beyond reason, unable to speak the words to explain what had happened to her.

      There’d been nothing broken, only bruised, though she was bleeding. A miscarriage, the doctor concluded. It happens, he and the nurse told her. Many early pregnancies were not viable.

      They asked her about the fear they must have seen in her eyes. They asked her if she was safe, if there was someone she could call.

      I’m safe now, Isabel had told them.

      They urged her to file a report. Isabel—to her eternal regret—had refused. She filed the incident away in the journal she’d always kept, closed the book on the past and went home. At Bella Vista, she’d buried the memory along with her dream of becoming a famous chef.

      She’d spent the next several years trying to forget that dream and trying to ignore Calvin Sharpe’s rise in the culinary world, his smarmy television show, his chain of signature restaurants, making the most of his fame as a TV personality.

      Why here? Sonoma was dotted with charming small towns frequented by tourists. Why Archangel, of all places? And why now, just as she was creating the life she’d always wanted?

      She grabbed the magazine, determined to distract herself, and caught a glimpse of another tidbit of advice: Take down your walls. He can’t see you if you’re hiding something. Oh, boy. When it came to putting up walls, she was a master bricklayer. But how would a guy notice if she quit doing that?

      Wear something sexy was next on the list. Clearly, this article was not meant for her. She brushed at a grass stain on her beekeeping coveralls and impatiently turned the page.

      A piece called “Wedding Wonders” jumped out at her. Perfect. As Tess’s maid of honor, Isabel was knee-deep in wedding plans. The article admonished her to keep things simple. Right, she thought. With Tess and Dominic, nothing was ever simple. Dominic had two kids from his previous marriage, and multiple relatives, some of them coming all the way from Italy. Keeping track of everyone was a major juggling act. Yet Tess was blissful; that was clear to anyone seeing the light in her eyes.

      As a girl, Isabel used to dream of her own wedding, but she’d put that aside at the same time she’d set aside her plans to study the culinary arts and earn her chef’s credentials. She had found other things to focus on—Bubbie, whose cancer diagnosis and subsequent treatment had thrown darkness over everyone at Bella Vista as she became sicker and eventually passed away. Then the estate itself, sinking deeper and deeper into debt as they battled the insurance company that had rejected the claim for Bubbie’s treatment. On the heels of that, Grandfather had fallen from a ladder in the orchard and was in a coma for weeks. Tess, whom Isabel had not met until that incident, had appeared out of nowhere, a redheaded reminder of the fact that their mutual father, Erik, had been a scoundrel right up until the moment of his death in a fiery car crash.

      But as Bubbie used to say—out of the worst winter will always come a brilliant springtime. Tess and Isabel had turned into the best of friends, and thanks to Tess’s relentless research, they’d recovered from the brink of disaster, and had turned the fortunes of Bella Vista around.

      Life could be very distracting, thought Isabel. And that was a good thing. It kept her from focusing on things that couldn’t be changed, such as the fact that she’d never finished culinary school, or that she’d allowed one failed relationship to keep her closed up tight inside a hard, protective shell. Now she had a new project that consumed her every waking moment—the cooking school. It was true that she didn’t have the official certification from a prestigious institute, but she had something that couldn’t be taught—a God-given talent in the kitchen.

      She clung to that gift, grateful to let the passion consume her and fill her days with a joyous pursuit. She believed living and feeling well came from eating well, appreciating the simple things in life and spending time in the company of family and friends, and that was the mission of the Bella Vista Cooking School. The last thing in the world she needed was something to divert her attention from creating the world she had always dreamed of.

      Cormac O’Neill returned to the waiting room, wearing a cotton print hospital smock that was open in the front from neck to navel, revealing his chest and abs. His abs had ridges. Ridges.

      He didn’t seem to notice the way she was staring. “The patient will live to fight the swarm another day,” he said. “I need to grab a clean shirt and my wallet from the car.” Leaning on his cane, he ducked out briefly, then returned. Now he wore a clean black T-shirt with an Illuminati logo, the fabric stretched taut across his chest, defining its muscled shape.

      “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” said Isabel, pretending not to notice the muscles.

      He gave a clipboard and insurance card to the receptionist. “I’m okay to drive,” he said to Isabel. “I’ll give you a lift back to your place.”

      “All right.” She quit trying to be sneaky about checking him out. He was probably onto her, anyway. He had to be used to it, surely. A guy couldn’t just walk around looking like that—flamboyant hair, big shoulders, piercing green eyes—and attract no notice.

      She tucked the magazine under her arm. It was an outdated issue, anyway. No one would care if she borrowed it to finish a couple of articles.

      “...if you don’t mind,” he said.

      “Uh...mind? Mind what?” She made herself focus on his words.

      “I

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