Rescued By Marriage. Dianne Drake

      “Repetitive motion over a long period of time is one way. Or an injury. I’m guessing it’s from your workouts, though.”

      “Is it curable?”

      “Not curable as much as it’s manageable, but it does have a tendency to flare up from time to time, which means you may have to, at some point, adjust your workout routines to favor your condition. But we’ll deal with that after I see the X-ray report. For now, I want you to massage your shoulder for about fifteen minutes with an ice pack, three or four times a day, and make sure you don’t leave the ice on any spot for more than a few seconds or you can actually get frostbite in your muscle.”

      “Instead of an ice pack with regular ice cubes, freeze some water in a paper cup then roll that over your shoulder in a massage,” Sam added. “Feels a lot better than ice cubes.”

      Della gave him an appreciative stare. “Voice of experience?”

      “I fancied myself as a writer once. Sadly, I was one inflamed bursa away from writing a best-selling novel.” He rubbed his elbow, then grinned. “Struck down in the middle of my prologue.”

      “You couldn’t be a writer so you became a doctor? Aren’t you quite the multi-faceted man?” Like the doctor who’d gone off to Paris to be an artist. So where was Sam’s real heart? she wondered briefly. “Anyway,” she said, turning back to the mayor, “take ibuprofen for a week. Go by the recommended dosage on the label, then come back and see me in a couple of days and we’ll take a look at how you’re getting along and figure out what to do from there. Also, by then I’ll have found my prescription pad, and I’ll write you a script for lab work and X-rays.”

      Her second appointment for the day now over with, Della received her pay with almost as much glee as she’d received her first. Glancing up at the gray clouds rolling in as she tucked it away in her pocket, she was hoping against hope her roof wasn’t going to leak, because a patch was not the place she wanted her first earnings to go. Most of it would go for the clinic, but a little would buy Meghan a gift.

      “Are you sure you’re going to stay here with the storm coming in?” Sam asked. “I’m not sure about the condition of your house. It might leak.”

      “It looks like I’ll be finding out in another few minutes,” she said, heading up to the porch.

      “Like I said before, I think that agent who sold you this practice should have been more honest about it. There may still be room to get out of the contract.”

      She stopped on the first step and looked at Sam. “He was honest. I simply didn’t ask enough questions. And I should have come here first to have a look. But I didn’t so it’s all water under the bridge now.” She glanced upward at the gray sky again, hoping there wasn’t soon to be water in her kitchen, living room and bedroom, too. “Besides, I have real patients now, and it appears my practice has officially opened.” All that was true, but it didn’t make the situation any easier. Still, something could be worked out. It had to. That’s the mindset she had to keep about her. For Meghan, she would make it work, or she’d be forced to return to Miami, contenting herself with a visit from her daughter on alternating weekends and holidays, while Anthony’s parents raised her. With that in mind, there simply wasn’t another choice here. “So, I’ll stay and see how it goes.”

      Della reached into her pocket to feel the money folded in there. It was silly of her, but it felt good to be on her own. If the situation hadn’t been so dire, it might have been laughable—the wife of Dr Anthony Riordan going almost giddy over a few dollars. She hoped that wherever he was now, heaven—which she doubted—or hell—which was likely the case—he had a lot more to fret over than money. “Guess it’s time to take a look at the rest of my bad news.” As she said that, a jagged streak of lightning split the sky, followed by an earsplitting roll of thunder. “It just keeps getting better, doesn’t it?”

      “We should make a run for it,” Sam urged, grabbing Della’s hand to pull her along with him toward the house, “before we get drenched. These storms pop up out of nowhere like that, and they can be pretty bad.”

      Della couldn’t help herself. She yanked herself away from Sam and turned her face to the heavens. As the sky opened up and it began to pour, she stood in the middle of her falling-down-you’d-have-to-be-crazy-to-own-it calamity of a new life and laughed. It was either that or cry, and crying wasn’t going to help her accomplish what she needed to here, because she needed to do so much in so little time.

      * * *

      Inside, in the kitchen, Sam opened and slammed shut every door and drawer, looking for matches. “You don’t happen to smoke, do you?” he called to Della, who was huddled, soaking wet and shivering, on a stool in front of the unlit fireplace in the living room.

      Too dumbfounded to comprehend everything around her, Della stared blankly at the room. It was empty and cold, and pelting raindrops on the roof sounded like gunshots exploding in rapid bursts, over and over. Outside, the dreary, late afternoon sky was turning darker by the minute, and since there was no electricity going, it was as dark inside as it was out.

      Overall, it was dismal and Della simply sat in the middle of it, staring into the empty fireplace. “No matches,” she called back. He knew she was trying hard to mask the discouragement in her voice, but he could hear it almost as well as he could hear his supervisor telling him not to get himself involved. But the sadness and near-desperation that slipped into her voice when her guard was down involved him.

      “I don’t smoke, but maybe we could use the lighter in the car,” she continued. Adjusting her position on the stool, the floorboards creaked and groaned under the shift. “Want me to go get it?”

      “What I want is for you to come to your senses. Go back with me to Mrs Hawkins’s for the night and sort this thing out. You can take a shower, put on dry clothes, eat a fit meal, get a good night’s sleep and have a fresh look at your options in the morning.” She was so vulnerable, and yet so stubborn. He’d known her all of three hours and already he was feeling responsible and protective. Bad for his job, even worse for his personal life.

      Once was enough. He’d learned that lesson well enough, and he sure wasn’t willing to put himself through anything like that again. If he were being smart about this, he’d be on his way back to Mrs Hawkins’s right now, to settle in for the evening. Alone! Without Della on his mind.

      But it seemed he wasn’t as smart as he’d thought he was, inasmuch as he wasn’t heading out the door. More than that, he wasn’t even thinking about heading out the door. Instead, he was already regretting the cold, hard floor on which he was about to spend the night if he couldn’t convince her to return with him. Della wasn’t about to be convinced, though. Deep down he knew that.

      “No need to,” she replied. “The roof doesn’t leak, so I’ll be fine.”

      “On the floor, in the dark. That’s not fine, Della.” It was more like insane. “What were you planning, anyway? To come here and find a quaint little seaside cottage all neat and tidy with everything you needed?”

      “There’s only one thing I need, and the rest of it doesn’t matter. I’ve got furniture coming in a few days, I think I can be handy with some of the repairs and I’ve got a medical practice to organize. Sleeping on the floor in the dark isn’t important.” She stood up and walked over to the wall, then ran her fingers lightly over its covering. Layer upon layer of peeling wallpaper, highlighted by splotches of yellowed newsprint and dabs of peeling paint here and there. Solid, but ugly. “And I’ll go have the electricity turned on tomorrow morning. So it’s only for one night.”

      Sam stepped into the living room, holding up the matches he’d found in the back of one of the kitchen cabinets. “You’re a stubborn woman, aren’t you?”

      She smiled. “I prefer to call it optimistic. Although my husband always accused me of being too stubborn for my own good. I think, though, I was too stubborn for his good. He wanted something I was too stubborn to be.”

      “Which